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f V 







A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


BY 

THOMAS HARDY 

AUTHOR OF “TESS OF THE D’URBERVILLES,” 
“LIFE’S LITTLE IRONIES,” ETC. 


WITH AN ETCHING BY 

H. MACBETH-RAEBURN 

AND A MAP OF WESSEX 


* A violet in the youth of primy nature, 
Forward, not permanent, sweet, not lasting, 
The perfume and suppliance of a minute ; 
No more.’ 


NEW YORK 

HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS 


FRANKLIN SQUARE 




9 


Books by 

THOMAS HARDY 

DESPERATE REMEDIES 
FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD 
A GROUP OF NOBLE DAMES 
THE HAND OF ETHELBERTA 
JUDE THE OBSCURE 
A LAODICEAN 
LIFE’S LITTLE IRONIES 
THE MAYOR OF CASTE RBRIDGE 
A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 
THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE 
TESS OF THE D’URBERVILLES 
THE TRUMPET MAJOR 
TWO ON A TOWER 
UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE 
THE WELL-BELOVED 
WESSEX TALES 
THE WOODLANDERS 
Croton 8vo. 

12mo. Thin Paper Edition. 

Cloth. Leather. 

A CHANGED MAN. Post 8vo 
WESSEX POEMS. First Series 
WESSEX POEMS. Second Series 


HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK 


3 1 <\ % S 5 
: 2. A 





PREFACE 


ThE following chapters were written at a time when the 
craze for indiscriminate church-restoration had just reached 
the remotest nooks of western England, where the wild and 
tragic features of the coast had long combined in perfect 
harmony with the crude Gothic Art of the ecclesiastical 
buildings scattered along it, throwing into extraordinary 
discord all architectural attempts at newness there. To 
restore the grey carcases of a mediaevalism whose spirit 
had fled, seemed a not less incongruous act than to set 
about renovating the adjoining crags themselves. 

Hence it happened that an imaginary history of three 
human hearts, whose emotions were not without corre- 
spondence with these material circumstances, found in the 
ordinary incidents of such church-renovations a fitting 
frame for its presentation. 

The shore and country about ‘Castle Boterel’ is now 
getting well known, and will be readily recognized. The 
spot is, I may add, the furthest westward of all those 
convenient corners wherein I have ventured to erect my 
theatre for these imperfect little dramas of country life 
and passions ; and it lies near to, or no great way be- 
yond, the vague border of the Wessex kingdom on that 
side, which, like the westering verge of modern American 

settlements, was progressive and uncertain. 

v 


PREFACE 


This, however, is of little importance. The place is pre- 
eminently (for one person at least) the region of dream and 
mystery. The ghostly birds, the pall-like sea, the frothy 
wind, the eternal soliloquy of the waters, the bloom of 
dark purple cast, that seems to exhale from the shoreward 
precipices, in themselves lend to the scene an atmosphere 
like the twilight of a night vision. 

One enormous sea-bord cliff in particular figures in the 
narrative ; and for some forgotten reason or other this 
cliff was described in the story as being without a name. 
Accuracy would require the statement to be that a remark- 
able cliff which resembles in many points the cliff of the 
description bears a name that no event has made famous. 

T. H. 


March 1895. 


THE PERSONS 


Elfride Swancourt 
Christopher Swancourt 
Stephen Smith . 

Henry Knight . 
Charlotte Troyton . 
Gertrude Jethway . 
Spenser Hugo Luxellian 
Lady Luxellian 
Mary and Kate 
William Worm . 

John Smith 
Jane Smith 
Martin Cannister . 
Unity 


. a young Lady. 

. a Clergyman. 

. an Architect. 

. a Reviewer and Essayist. 
. a rich Widow. 

. a poor Widow. 

. a Peer. 

. his Wife. 

. two little Girls. 

. a dazed Factotum. 

. a Master-mason. 

. his Wife. 

. a Sexton. 

. a Maid-servant. 


Other servants , masons, labourers , grooms , nondescripts, etc., etc. 


THE SCENE 

Mostly on the outskirts of Lower Wessex. 


V 


I 

*A fair vestal, throned in the west. 

ElFRIDE SWANCOURT was a girl whose emotions 
lay very near the surface. Their nature more precisely, 
and as modified by the creeping hours of time, was 
known only to those who watched the circumstances of 
her history. 

Personally, she was the combination of very interest- 
ing particulars, whose rarity, however, lay in the com- 
bination itself rather than in the individual elements 
combined. As a matter of fact, you did not see the 
form and substance of her features when conversing 
with her; and this charming power of preventing a 
material study of her lineaments by an interlocutor, 
originated not in the cloaking effect of a well-formed 
manner (for her manner was childish and scarcely 
formed), but in the attractive crudeness of the remarks 
themselves. She had lived all her life in retirement — 
the monstrari digito of idle men had not flattered her, 
and at the age of nineteen or twenty she was no further 
on in social consciousness than an urban young lady 
of fifteen. 

One point in her, however, you did notice : that was 
her eyes. In them was seen a sublimation of all of 

I A 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


her; it was not necessary to look further: there she 
lived. 

These eyes were blue; blue as autumn distance — 
blue as the blue we see between the retreating mould- 
ings of hills and woody slopes on a sunny September 
morning. A misty and shady blue, that had no begin- 
ning or surface, and was looked into rather than at. 

As to her presence, it was not powerful; it was 
weak. Some women can make their personality pervade 
the atmosphere of a whole banqueting hall; Elfride’s 
was no more pervasive than that of a kitten. 

Elfride had as her own the thoughtfulness which 
appears in the face of the Madonna della Sedia, with- 
out its rapture : the warmth and spirit of the type of 
woman’s feature most common to the beauties — mortal 
and immortal — of Rubens, without their insistent fleshi- 
ness. The characteristic expression of the female faces 
of Correggio — that of the yearning human thoughts that 
lie too deep for tears — was hers sometimes, but seldom 
under ordinary conditions. 

The point in Elfride Swancourt’s life at which a 
deeper current may be said to have permanently set in, 
was one winter afternoon when she found herself stand- 
ing, in the character of hostess, face to face with a man 
she had never seen before — moreover, looking at him 
with a Miranda-like curiosity and interest that she had 
never yet bestowed on a mortal. 

On this particular day her father, the vicar of a 
parish on the sea-swept outskirts of Lower Wessex, and 
a widower, was suffering from an attack of gout. After 
finishing her household supervisions Elfride became 
restless, and several times left the room, ascended the 
staircase, and knocked at her father’s chamber-door. 

* Come in ! ’ was always answered in a hearty out-of- 
door voice from the inside. 

‘ Papa,’ she said on one occasion to the fine, red- 
faced, handsome man of forty, who, puffing and fizzing 
2 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


like a bursting bottle, lay on the bed wrapped in a 
dressing-gown, and every now and then enunciating, 
in spite of himself, about one letter of some word or 
words that were almost oaths; ‘papa, will you not 
come downstairs this evening ? ’ She spoke distinctly : 
he was rather deaf. 

‘ Afraid not — eh-h-h ! — very much afraid I shall not, 
Elfride. Piph-ph-ph ! I can’t bear even a handker- 
chief upon this deuced toe of mine, much less a 
stocking or slipper — piph-ph-ph ! There ’tis again ! 
No, I shan’t get up till to-morrow.’ 

‘ Then I hope this London man won’t come ; for I 
don’t know what I should do, papa.’ 

‘ Well, it would be awkward, certainly.’ 

‘ I should hardly think he would come to-day.’ 

‘ Why ? ’ 

‘ Because the wind blows so.’ 

‘ Wind ! What ideas you have, Elfride ! Who ever 
heard of wind stopping a man from doing his business ? 
The idea of this toe of mine coming on so suddenly ! 
... If he should come, you must send him up to me, 
I suppose, and then give him some food and put him 
to bed in some way. Dear me, what a nuisance all 
this is ! ’ 

‘ Must he have dinner ? ’ 

‘ Too heavy for a tired man at the end of a tedious 
journey.’ 

‘ Tea, then ? ’ 

‘ Not substantial enough.’ 

‘High tea, then? There is cold fowl, rabbit-pie, 
some pasties, and things of that kind.’ 

‘ Yes, high tea.’ 

‘ Must I pour out his tea, papa ? ’ 

‘ Of course ; you are the mistress of the house.’ 

‘ What ! sit there all the time with a stranger, just as 
if I knew him, and not anybody to introduce us ? ’ 

‘Nonsense, child, about introducing; you know 

3 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


better than that. A practical professional man, tired 
and hungry, who has been travelling ever since daylight 
this morning, will hardly be inclined to talk and air 
courtesies to-night. He wants food and shelter, and 
you must see that he has it, simply because I am 
suddenly laid up and cannot. There is nothing so 
dreadful in that, I hope? You get all kinds of stuff 
into your head from reading so many of those novels.’ 

* Oh no ; there is nothing dreadful in it when it 
becomes plainly a case of necessity like this. But, you 
see, you are always there when people come to dinner, 
even if we know them; and this is some strange 
London man of the world, who will think it odd, 
perhaps.’ 

* Very well ; let him.’ 

4 Is he Mr. Hewby’s partner ? ’ 

4 1 should scarcely think so : he may be.’ 

4 How old is he, I wonder ? ’ 

4 That I cannot tell. You will find the copy of my 
letter to Mr. Hewby, and his answer, upon the table in 
the study. You may read them, and then you’ll know 
as much as I do about our visitor.’ 

4 1 have read them.’ 

4 Well, what’s the use of asking questions, then ? 
They contain all I know. Ugh-h-h ! . . . Od plague 
you, you young scamp ! don’t put anything there ! I 
can’t bear the weight of a fly.’ 

4 Oh, I am sorry, papa. I forgot ; I thought you 
might be cold,’ she said, hastily removing the rug she 
had thrown upon the feet of the sufferer ; and waiting 
till she saw that consciousness of her offence had passed 
from his face, she withdrew from the room, and retired 
again downstairs. 


“Twas on the evening of a winter’s day.' 


When two or three additional hours had merged 
the same afternoon in evening, some moving outlines 
might have been observed against the sky on the 
summit of a wild lone hill in that district. They 
circumscribed two men, having at present the aspect 
of silhouettes, sitting in a dog-cart and pushing along 
in the teeth of the wind. Scarcely a solitary house or 
man had been visible along the whole dreary distance 
of open country they were traversing ; and now that 
night had begun to fall, the faint twilight, which still 
gave an idea of the landscape to their observation, was 
enlivened by the quiet appearance of the planet Jupiter, 
momentarily gleaming in intenser brilliancy in front of 
them, and by Sirius shedding his rays in rivalry from 
his position over their shoulders. The only lights 
apparent on earth were some spots of dull red, glowing 
here and there upon the distant hills, which, as the 
driver of the vehicle gratuitously remarked to the hirer, 
were smouldering fires for the consumption of peat and 
gorse-roots, where the common was being* broken up for 
agricultural purposes. The wind prevailed with but 
little abatement from its daytime boisterous ness, three 
5 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


or four small clouds, delicate and pale, creeping along 
under the sky southward to the Channel. 

Fourteen of the sixteen miles intervening between 
the railway terminus and the end of their journey had 
been gone over, when they began to pass along the 
brink of a valley some miles in extent, wherein the 
wintry skeletons of a more luxuriant vegetation than 
had hitherto surrounded them proclaimed an increased 
richness of soil, which showed signs of far more careful 
enclosure and management than had any slopes they 
had yet passed. A little farther, and an opening in 
the elms stretching up from this fertile valley revealed 
a mansion. 

'That’s Endelstow House, Lord Luxellian’s,’ said 
the driver. 

‘ Endelstow House, Lord Luxellian’s, ’ repeated the 
other mechanically. He then turned himself sideways, 
and keenly scrutinized the almost invisible house with 
an interest which the indistinct picture itself seemed 
far from adequate to create. * Yes, that’s Lord Luxel- 
lian’s,’ he said yet again after a while, as he still looked 
in the same direction. 

‘ What, be we going there ? ’ 

‘ No; Endelstow Vicarage, as I have told you.’ 

‘ I thought you m’t have altered your mind, sir, as 
ye have stared that way at nothing so long.’ 

‘ Oh no ; I am interested in the house, that’s all.’ 

‘ Most people be, as the saying is.’ 

‘Not in the sense that I am.’ 

‘ Oh ! . . . Well, his family is no better than my 
own, ’a b’lieve.’ 

‘ How is that ? ’ 

‘ Hedgers and ditchers by rights. But once in 
ancient times one of ’em, when he was at work, changed 
clothes with King Charles the Second, and saved the 
king’s life. King Charles came up to him like a 
common man, and said off-hand, “ Man in the smock- 
6 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


frock, my name is Charles the Second, and that’s the 
truth on’t. Will you lend me your clothes ? ” “I 
don’t mind if I do,” said Hedger Luxellian ; and they 
changed there and then. “ Now mind ye,” King 
Charles the Second said, like a common man, as he 
rode away, “ if ever I come to the crown, you come to 
court, knock at the door, and say out bold, 4 Is King 
Charles the Second at home ? ’ Tell your name, and 
they shall let you in, and you shall be made a lord.” 
Now, that was very nice of Master Charley? ’ 

4 Very nice indeed.’ 

4 Well, as the story is, the king came to the throne ; 
and some years after that, away went Hedger Luxellian, 
knocked at the king’s door, and asked if King Charles 
the Second was in. 44 No, he isn’t,” they said. “ Then, 
is Charles the Third ? ” said Hedger Luxellian. “ Yes,” 
said a young feller standing by like a common man, 
only he had a crown on, “ my name is Charles the 
Third.” And ’ 

‘ I really fancy that must be a mistake. I don’t 
recollect anything in English history about Charles the 
Third,’ said the other in a tone of mild remonstrance. 

4 Oh, that’s right history enough, only ’twasn’t 
prented ; he was rather a queer-tempered man, if you 
remember.’ 

4 Very well ; go on.’ 

4 And, by hook or by crook, Hedger Luxellian was 
made a lord, and everything went on well till some 
time after, when he got into a most terrible row with 
King Charles the Fourth ’ 

4 1 can’t stand Charles the Fourth. Upon my word, 
that’s too much.’ 

4 Why ? There was a George the Fourth, wasn’t 
there ? ’ 

4 Certainly.’ 

4 Well, Charleses be as common as Georges. How- 
ever I’ll say no more about it. . . . Ah, well ! ’tis the 

7 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


funniest world ever I lived in — upon my life ’tis. Ah, 
that such should be ! ’ 

The dusk had thickened into darkness while they 
thus conversed, and the outline and surface of the 
mansion gradually disappeared. The windows, which 
had before been as black blots on a lighter expanse 
of wall, became illuminated, and were transfigured to 
squares of light on the general dark body of the night 
landscape as it absorbed the outlines of the edifice 
into its gloomy monochrome. 

Not another word was spoken for some time, and 
they climbed a hill, then another hill piled on the 
summit of the first. An additional mile of plateau 
followed, from which could be discerned two light- 
houses on the coast they were nearing, reposing on the 
horizon with a calm lustre of benignity. Another oasis 
was reached; a little dell lay like a nest at their feet, 
towards which the driver pulled the horse at a sharp 
angle, and descended a steep slope which dived under 
the trees like a rabbit’s burrow. They sank lower and 
lower. 

‘ Endelstow Vicarage is inside here,’ continued the 
man with the reins. ‘This part about here is West 
Endelstow; Lord Luxellian’s is East Endelstow, and 
has a church to itself. Pa’son Swancourt is the pa’son 
of both, and bobs backward and forward. Ah, well ! 
’tis a funny world. ’A b’lieve there was once a quarry 
where this house stands. The man who built it in past 
time scraped all the glebe for earth to put round the 
vicarage, and laid out a little paradise of flowers and 
trees in the soil he had got together in this way, whilst 
the fields he scraped have been good for nothing ever 
since.’ 

‘ How long has the present incumbent been here ? ’ 

‘ Maybe about a year, or a year and half : ’tisn’t two 
years ; for they don’t scandalize him yet ; and, as a rule, 
a parish begins to scandalize the pa’son at the end of 
8 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


two years among ’em familiar. But he’s a very nice 
party. Ay, Pa’son Swancourt knows me pretty well 
from often driving over; and I know Pa’son Swan- 
court.’ 

They emerged from the bower, swept round in a 
curve, and the chimneys and gables of the vicarage 
became darkly visible. Not a light showed anywhere. 
They alighted; the man felt his way into the porch, 
and rang the bell. 

At the end of three or four minutes, spent in patient 
waiting without hearing any sounds of a response, the 
stranger advanced and repeated the call in a more 
decided manner. He then fancied he heard footsteps 
in the hall, and sundry movements of the door-knob, 
but nobody appeared. 

‘ Perhaps they beant at home,’ sighed the driver. 
‘And I promised myself a bit of supper in Pa’son 
Swancourt’s kitchen. Sich lovely mate-pize and figged 
keakes, and cider, and drops o’ cordial that they do 
keep here ! ’ 

‘ All right, naibours ! Be ye rich men or be ye poor 
men, that ye must needs come to the world’s end at 
this time o’ night ? ’ exclaimed a voice at this instant ; 
and, turning their heads, they saw a rickety individual 
shambling round from the back door with a horn lantern 
dangling from his hand. 

‘ Time o’ night, ’a b’lieve ! and the clock only gone 
seven of ’em. Show a light,' and let us in, William 
Worm.’ 

* Oh, that you, Robert Lickpan ? ’ 

‘ Nobody else, William Worm.’ 

‘ And is the visiting man a-come ? ’ 

‘Yes,’ said the stranger. ‘Is Mr. Swancourt at 
home ? ’ 

‘ That ’a is, sir. And would ye mind coming round 
by the back way ? The front door is got stuck wi’ the 
wet, as he will do sometimes ; and the Turk can’t open 

9 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


en. I know I am only a poor wambling man that ’ill 
never pay the Lord for my making, sir ; but I can show 
the way in, sir.’ 

The new arrival followed his guide through a little 
door in a wall, and then promenaded a scullery and a 
kitchen, along which he passed with eyes rigidly fixed 
in advance, an inbred horror of prying forbidding him 
to gaze around apartments that formed the back side 
of the household tapestry. Entering the hall, he was 
about to be shown to his room, when from the inner 
lobby of the front entrance, whither she had gone to 
learn the cause of the delay, sailed forth the form of 
Elfride. Her start of amazement at the sight of the 
visitor coming forth from under the stairs proved that 
she had not been expecting this surprising flank move- 
ment, which had been originated entirely by the in- 
genuity of William Worm. 

She appeared in the prettiest of all feminine guises, 
that is to say, in demi-toilette, with plenty of loose 
curly hair tumbling down about her shoulders. An ex- 
pression of uneasiness pervaded her countenance; and 
altogether she scarcely appeared woman enough for the 
situation. The visitor removed his hat, and the first 
words were spoken ; Elfride prelusively looking with 
a deal of interest, not unmixed with surprise, at the 
person towards whom she was to do the duties of 
hospitality. 

4 1 am Mr. Smith,’ said the stranger in a musical 
voice. 

‘ I am Miss Swancourt,’ said Elfride. 

Her constraint was over. The great contrast be- 
tween the reality she beheld before her, and the dark, 
taciturn, sharp, elderly man of business who had lurked 
in her imagination — a man with clothes smelling of city 
smoke, skin sallow from want of sun, and talk flavoured 
with epigram — was such a relief to her that Elfride 
smiled, almost laughed, in the new-comer’s face, 
io 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


Stephen Smith, who has hitherto been hidden from 
us by the darkness, was at this time of his life but 
a youth in appearance, and barely a man in years. 
Judging from his look, London was the last place in 
the world that one would have imagined to be the 
scene of his activities : such a face surely could not 
be nourished amid smoke and mud and fog and dust; 
such an open countenance could never even have seen 
anything of * the weariness, the fever, and the fret ’ of 
Babylon the Second. 

His complexion was as fine as Elfride’s own; the 
pink of his cheeks as delicate. His mouth as perfect as 
Cupid’s bow in form, and as cherry-red in colour as hers. 
Bright curly hair; bright sparkling blue-gray eyes; a 
boy’s blush and manner ; neither whisker nor moustache, 
unless a little light-brown fur on his upper lip deserved 
the latter title : this composed the London professional 
man, the prospect of whose advent had so troubled 
Elfride. 

Elfride hastened to say she was sorry to tell him 
that Mr. Swancourt was not able to receive him that 
evening, and gave the reason why. Mr. Smith replied, 
in a voice boyish by nature and manly by art, that he 
was very sorry to hear this news ; but that as far as his 
reception was concerned, it did not matter in the least. 

Stephen was shown up to his room. In his absence 
Elfride stealthily glided into her father’s. 

* He’s come, papa. Such a young man for a business 
man ! ’ 

‘ Oh, indeed ! ’ 

* His face is — well — pretty ; just like mined 

* H’m ! what next ? y 

* Nothing ; that’s all I know of him yet. It is rather 
nice, is it not ? * 

* Well, we shall see that when we know him better. 
Go down and give the poor fellow something to eat 
and drink, for Heaven’s sake. And when he has done 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


eating, say I should like to have a few words with him, 
if he doesn’t mind coming up here.’ 

The young lady glided downstairs again, and whilst 
she awaits young Smith’s entry, the letters referring to 
his visit had better be given. 

1. — Mr. Swancourt to Mr. Hewby. 

‘ Endelstow Vicarage, Feb. 18, 18 — . 

‘Sir, — We are thinking of restoring the tower and 
aisle of the church in this parish ; and Lord Luxellian, 
the patron of the living, has mentioned your name as 
that of a trustworthy architect whom it would be desir- 
able to ask to superintend the work. 

4 1 am exceedingly ignorant of the necessary pre- 
liminary steps. Probably, however, the first is that 
(should you be, as Lord Luxellian says you are, disposed 
to assist us) yourself or some member of your staff 
come and see the building, and report thereupon for 
the satisfaction of parishioners and others. 

4 The spot is a very remote one : we have no railway 
within fourteen miles ; and the nearest place for putting 
up at — called a town, though merely a large village — is 
Castle Boterel, two miles further on ; so that it would 
be most convenient for you to stay at the vicarage — 
which I am glad to place at your disposal — instead of 
pushing on to the hotel at Castle Boterel, and coming 
back again in the morning. 

4 Any day of the next week that you like to name for 
the visit will find us quite ready to receive you. — Yours 
very truly, Christopher Swancourt.’ 

2. — Mr. Hewby to Mr. Swancourt. 

“Percy Place, Charing Cross, Feb . 20, 18—. 

‘Dear Sir, — Agreeably to your request of the 18th 
instant, I have arranged to survey and make drawings 
12 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


of the aisle and tower of your parish church, and of the 
dilapidations which have been suffered to accrue thereto, 
with a view to its restoration. 

‘ My assistant, Mr. Stephen Smith, will leave London 
by the early train to-morrow morning for the purpose. 
Many thanks for your proposal to accommodate him. 
He will take advantage of your offer, and will probably 
reach your house at some hour of the evening. You 
may put every confidence in him, and may rely upon 
his discernment in the matter of church architecture. 

‘ Trusting that the plans for the restoration, which I 
shall prepare from the details of his survey, will prove 
satisfactory to yourself and Lord Luxellian, I am, dear 
sir, yours faithfully. Walter Hewby.’ 


Ill 

‘Melodious birds sing madrigals.’ 

That first repast in Endelstow Vicarage was a very 
agreeable one to young Stephen Smith. The table was 
spread, as Elfride had suggested to her father, with the 
materials for the heterogeneous meal called high tea — a 
class of refection welcome to all when away from men 
and towns, and particularly attractive to youthful palates. 
The table was prettily decked with winter flowers and 
leaves, amid which the eye was greeted by chops, chicken, 
pie, &c., and two huge pasties overhanging the sides of 
the dish with a cheerful aspect of abundance. 

At the end, towards the fireplace, appeared the tea- 
service, of old-fashioned Worcester porcelain, and behind 
this arose the slight form of Elfride, attempting to add 
matronly dignity to the movement of pouring out tea, 
and to have a weighty and concerned look in matters 
of marmalade, honey, and clotted cream. Having 
made her own meal before he arrived, she found to 
her embarrassment that there was nothing left for her 
to do but talk when not assisting him. She asked him 
if he would excuse her finishing a letter she had been 
writing at a side-table, and, after sitting down to it, 
tingled with a sense of being grossly rude. However, 
i4 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


seeing that he noticed nothing personally wrong in her, 
and that he too was embarrassed when she attentively 
watched his cup to refill it, Elfride became better at 
ease ; and when furthermore he accidentally kicked the 
leg of the table, and then nearly upset his tea-cup, 
just as schoolboys did, she felt herself mistress of the 
situation, and could talk very well. In a few minutes 
ingenuousness and a common term of years obliter- 
ated all recollection that they were strangers just met. 
Stephen began to wax eloquent on extremely slight 
experiences connected with his professional pursuits ; 
and she, having no experiences to fall back upon, 
recounted with much animation stories that had been 
related to her by her father, which would have astonished 
him had he heard with what fidelity of action and tone 
they were rendered. Upon the whole, a very interesting 
picture of Sweet-and-Twenty was on view that evening 
in Mr. Swancourt’s house. 

Ultimately Stephen had to go upstairs and talk loud 
to the vicar, receiving from him between his puffs a great 
many apologies for calling him so unceremoniously to 
a stranger’s bedroom. ‘ But,’ continued Mr. Swancourt, 
‘ I felt that I wanted to say a few words to you before 
the morning, on the business of your visit. One’s 
patience gets exhausted by staying a prisoner in bed 
all day through a sudden freak of one’s enemy — new 
to me, though — for I have known very little of gout as 
yet. However, he’s gone to my other toe in a very 
mild manner, and I expect he’ll slink off altogether by 
the morning. I hope you have been well attended to 
downstairs ? * 

‘ Perfectly. And though it is unfortunate, and I am 
sorry to see you laid up, I beg you will not take the 
slightest notice of my being in the house the while.’ 

‘ I will not. But I shall be down to-morrow. My 
daughter is an excellent doctor. A dose or two of her 
mild mixtures will fetch me round quicker than all the 
15 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


drug stuff in the world. Well, now about the church 
business. Take a seat, do. We can’t afford to stand 
upon ceremony in these parts as you see, and for this 
reason, that a civilized human being seldom stays long 
with us ; and so we cannot waste time in approaching 
him, or he will be gone before we have had the plea- 
sure of close acquaintance. This tower of ours is, as 
you will notice, entirely gone beyond the possibility of 
restoration ; but the church itself is well enough. You 
should see some of the churches in this county. Floors 
rotten : ivy lining the walls.’ 

‘ Dear me ! ’ 

‘ Oh, that’s nothing. The congregation of a neigh- 
bour of mine, whenever a storm of rain comes on 
during service, open their umbrellas and hold them up 
till the dripping ceases from the roof. Now, if you will 
kindly bring me those papers and letters you see lying 
on the table, I will show you how far we have got.’ 

Stephen crossed the room to fetch them, and the 
vicar seemed to notice more particularly the slim figure 
of his visitor. 

‘ I suppose you are quite competent ? ’ he said. 

‘ Quite/ said the young man, colouring slightly. 

‘ You are very young, I fancy — I should say you 
are not more than nineteen ? ’ 

‘ I am nearly twenty-one.’ 

‘ Exactly half my age ; I am forty-two.’ 

‘ By the way,’ said Mr. Swancourt, after some con- 
versation, ‘you said your whole name was Stephen 
Fitzmaurice, and that your grandfather came originally 
from Caxbury. Since I have been speaking, it has 
occurred to me that I know something of you. You 
belong to a well-known ancient county family — not 
ordinary Smiths in the least.’ 

‘ I don’t think we have any of their blood in our 
veins.’ 

* Nonsense ! you must. Hand me the “ Landed 
16 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


Gentry.” Now, let me see. There, Stephen Fitz- 
maurice Smith — he lies in St. Mary’s Church, doesn’t 
he? Well, out of that family sprang the Leaseworthy 
Smiths, and collaterally came General Sir Stephen 
Fitzmaurice Smith of Caxbury ’ 

‘ Yes ; I have seen his monument there,’ shouted 
Stephen. ‘ But there is no connection between his 
family and mine : there cannot be.’ 

■ There is none, possibly, to your knowledge. But 
look at this, my dear sir,’ said the vicar, striking 
his fist upon the bedpost for emphasis. ‘ Here are 
you, Stephen Fitzmaurice Smith, living in London, 
but springing from Caxbury. Here in this book is a 
genealogical tree of the Stephen Fitzmaurice Smiths 
of Caxbury Manor. You may be only a family of pro- 
fessional men now — I am not inquisitive : I don’t 
ask questions of that kind ; it is not in me to do so 
— but it is as plain as the nose in your face that 
there’s your origin ! And, Mr. Smith, I congratulate 
you upon your blood ; blue blood, sir ; and, upon my 
life, a very desirable colour, as the world goes.’ 

‘ I wish you could congratulate me upon some more 
tangible quality,’ said the younger man, sadly no less 
than modestly. 

‘Nonsense! that will come with time. You are 
young : all your life is before you. Now look — see 
how far back in the mists of antiquity my own family 
of Swancourt have a root. Here, you see,’ he con- 
tinued, turning to the page, ‘is Geoffrey, the one 
among my ancestors who lost a barony because he 
would cut his joke. Ah, it’s the sort of us ! But 
the story is too long to tell now. Ay, I’m a poor 
man — a poor gentleman, in fact : those I would be 
friends with, won’t be friends with me; those who 
are willing to be friends with me, I am above being 
friends with. Beyond dining with a neighbouring 
incumbent or two, and an occasional chat — sometimes 
17 b 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


dinner — with Lord Luxellian, a connection of mine, I 
am in absolute solitude — absolute.* 

‘You have your studies, your books, and your— 
daughter.* 

‘Oh yes, yes; and I don’t complain of poverty. 
Canto coram latrone . Well, Mr. Smith, don’t let me 
detain you any longer in a sick room. Ha! that 
reminds me of a story I once heard in my younger 
days.* Here the vicar began a series of small private 
laughs, and Stephen looked inquiry. ‘ Oh, no, no ! 
it is too bad — too bad to tell ! ’ continued Mr. Swan- 
court in undertones of grim mirth. * Well, go down- 
stairs ; my daughter must do the best she can with 
you this evening. Ask her to sing to you — she plays 
and sings very nicely. Good-night ; I feel as if I had 
known you for five or six years. I’ll ring for some- 
body to show you down.* 

‘ Never mind,* said Stephen, ‘ I can find the way.’ 
And he went downstairs, thinking of the delightful 
freedom of manner in the remoter counties in com- 
parison with the reserve of London. 

* I forgot to tell you that my father was rather deaf,’ 
said Elfride anxiously, when Stephen entered the little 
drawing-room. 

‘ Never mind ; I know all about it, and we are great 
friends,’ the man of business replied enthusiastically. 
‘ And, Miss Swancourt, will you kindly sing to me ? ’ 

To Miss Swancourt this request seemed, what in 
fact it was, exceptionally point-blank ; though she guessed 
that her father had some hand in framing it, knowing, 
rather to her cost, of his unceremonious way of utilizing 
her for the benefit of dull sojourners. At the same 
time, as Mr. Smith’s manner was too frank to provoke 
criticism, and his age too little to inspire fear, she was 
ready — not to say pleased — to accede. Selecting from 
the canterbury some old family ditties, that in years gone 
18 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


by had been played and sung by her mother, Elfride 
sat down to the pianoforte, and began ‘ ’Twas on the 
evening of a winter’s day,’ in a pretty contralto voice. 

‘ Do you like that old thing, Mr. Smith ? ’ she said 
at the end. 

‘Yes, I do much,’ said Stephen — words he would 
have uttered, and sincerely, to anything on earth, from 
glee to requiem, that she might have chosen. 

‘You shall have a little one by De Leyre, that was 
given me by a young French lady who was staying at 
Endelstow House : 

*“Je l’ai plante, je l’ai vu naitre, 

Ce beau rosier oil les oiseaux,” &c. ; 

and then I shall want to give you my own favourite for 
the very last, Shelley’s “ When the lamp is shattered,” as 
set to music by my poor mother. I so much like singing 
to anybody who really cares to hear me.’ 

Every woman who makes a permanent impression 
on a man is usually recalled to his mind’s eye as she 
appeared in one particular scene, which seems ordained 
to be her special form of manifestation throughout the 
pages of his memory. As the patron Saint has her 
attitude and accessories in mediaeval illumination, so 
the sweetheart may be said to have hers upon the table 
of her true Love’s fancy, without which she is rarely 
introduced there except by effort ; and this though she 
may, on further acquaintance, have been observed in 
many other phases which one would imagine to be far 
more appropriate to love’s young dream. 

Miss Elfride’s image chose the form in which she 
was beheld during these minutes of singing, for her per- 
manent attitude of visitation to Stephen’s eyes during his 
sleeping and waking hours in after days. The profile 
is seen of a young woman in a pale gray silk dress with 
trimmings of swan’s-down, and opening up from a point 
in front, like a waistcoat without a shirt ; the cool colour 
19 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


contrasting admirably with the warm bloom of her neck 
and face. The furthermost candle on the piano comes 
immediately in a line with her head, and half invisible 
itself, forms the accidentally frizzled hair into a nebulous 
haze of light, surrounding her crown like an aureola. 
Her hands are in their place on the keys, her lips 
parted, and trilling forth, in a tender di?ninuendo , the 
closing words of the sad apostrophe : 

‘ O Love, who bewailest 

The frailty of all things here, 

Why choose you the frailest 

For your cradle, your home, and your bier 1 ’ 

Tier head is forward a little, and her eyes directed 
keenly upward to the top of the page of music con- 
fronting her. Then comes a rapid look into Stephen’s 
face, and a still more rapid look back again to her 
business, her face having dropped its sadness, and 
acquired a certain expression of mischievous archness 
the while ; which lingered there for some time, but was 
never developed into a positive smile of flirtation. 

Stephen suddenly shifted his position from her right 
hand to her left, where there was just room enough for 
a small ottoman to stand between the piano and the 
corner of the room. Into this nook he squeezed him- 
self, and gazed wistfully up into Elfride’s face. So long 
and so earnestly gazed he, that her cheek deepened to a 
more and more crimson tint as each line was added to 
her song. Concluding, and pausing motionless after 
the last word for a minute or two, she ventured to look 
at him again. His features wore an expression of 
unutterable heaviness. 

‘You don’t hear many songs, do you, Mr. Smith, 
to take so much notice of these of mine ? ’ 

‘ Perhaps it was the means and vehicle of the song 
that I was noticing: I mean yourself,’ he answered gently. 

‘ Now, Mr. Smith ! 9 


20 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


‘ It is perfectly true ; I don’t hear much singing. 
You mistake what I am, I fancy. Because I come as 
a stranger to a secluded spot, you think I must needs 
come from a life of bustle, and know the latest move- 
ments of the day. But I don’t. My life is as quiet 
as yours, and more solitary ; solitary as death.’ 

‘ The death which comes from a plethora of life ? 
But seriously, I can quite see that you are not the 
least what I thought you would be before I saw you. 
You are not critical, or experienced, or — much to 
mind. That’s why I don’t mind singing airs to you 
that I only half know.’ Finding that by this confession 
she had vexed him in a way she did not intend, she 
added naively, 1 I mean, Mr. Smith, that you are better, 
not worse, for being only young and not very experi- 
enced. You don’t think my life here so very tame and 
dull, I know.’ 

‘ I do not, indeed,’ he said with fervour. ‘ It must 
be delightfully poetical, and sparkling, and fresh, 
and ’ 

4 There you go, Mr. Smith ! Well, men of another 
kind, when I get them to be honest enough to own 
the truth, think just the reverse : that my life must be 
a dreadful bore in its normal state, though pleasant 
for the exceptional few days they pass here.’ 

‘ I could live here always ! ’ he said, and with such 
a tone and look of unconscious revelation that Elfride 
was startled to find that her harmonies had fired a small 
Troy, in the shape of Stephen’s heart. She said quickly : 

‘ But you can’t live here always.’ 

« Oh no.’ And he drew himself in with the sensi- 
tiveness of a snail. 

Elfride’s emotions were sudden as his in kindling, but 
the least of woman’s lesser infirmities — love of admira- 
tion — caused an inflammable disposition on his part, so 
exactly similar to her own, to appear as meritorious in 
him as modesty made her own seem culpable in her. 

21 


IV 


‘Where heaves the turf in many a mould’ring heap.' 

F OR reasons of his own, Stephen Smith was stirring 
a short time after dawn the next morning. From the 
window of his room he could see, first, two bold 
escarpments sloping down together like the letter V. 
Towards the bottom, like liquid in a funnel, appeared 
the sea, gray and small. On the brow of one hill, of 
rather greater altitude than its neighbour, stood the 
church which was to be the scene of his operations. 
The lonely edifice was black and bare, cutting up into 
the sky from the very tip of the hill. It had a 
square mouldering tower, owning neither battlement 
nor pinnacle, and seemed a monolithic termination, of 
one substance with the ridge, rather than a structure 
raised thereon. Round the church ran a low wall ; 
over-topping the wall in general level was the grave- 
yard; not as a graveyard usually is, a fragment of 
landscape with its due variety of chiaro-oscuro, but a 
mere profile against the sky, serrated with the outlines 
of graves and a very few memorial stones. Not a tree 
could exist up there : nothing but the monotonous 
gray-green grass. 

Five minutes after this casual survey was made his 
22 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


bedroom was empty, and its occupant had vanished 
quietly from the house. 

At the end of two hours he was again in the room, 
looking warm and glowing. He now pursued the 
artistic details of dressing, which on his first rising 
had been entirely omitted. And a very blooming 
boy he looked, after that mysterious morning scamper. 
His mouth was a triumph of its class. It was the 
cleanly-cut, piquantly pursed-up mouth of William 
Pitt, as represented in the well or little known bust 
by Nollekens — a mouth which is in itself a young 
man’s fortune, if properly exercised. His round chin, 
where its upper part turned inward, still continued its 
perfect and full curve, seeming to press in to a point 
the bottom of his nether lip at their place of junction. 

Once he murmured the name of Elfride. Ah, there 
she was ! On the lawn in a plain dress, without hat or 
bonnet, running with a boy’s velocity, superadded to a 
girl’s lightness, after a tame rabbit she was endeavouring 
.to capture, her strategic intonations of coaxing words 
alternating with desperate rushes so much out of keeping 
with them, that the hollowness of such expressions was 
but too evident to her pet, who darted and dodged in 
carefully timed counterpart. 

The scene down there was altogether different from 
that of the hills. A thicket of shrubs arid trees enclosed 
the favoured spot from the wilderness without ; even at 
this time of the year the grass was luxuriant there. No 
wind blew inside the protecting belt of evergreens, 
wasting its force upon the higher and stronger trees 
forming the outer margin of the grove. 

Then he heard a heavy person shuffling about in 
slippers, and calling ‘ Mr. Smith ! ’ Smith proceeded 
to the study, and found Mr. Swancourt. The young 
man expressed his gladness to see his host downstairs. 

< Oh yes ; I knew I should soon be right again. I 
have not made the acquaintance of gout for more than 
2 3 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


two years, and it generally goes off the second night. 
Well, where have you been this morning? I saw you 
come in just now, I think ! ’ 

‘ Yes ; I have been for a walk? 

* Start early ? ’ 

‘Yes.’ 

‘ Very early, I think ? ’ 

‘Yes, it was rather early.’ 

‘ Which way did you go ? To the sea, I suppose. 
Everybody goes seaward.’ 

‘ No ; I followed up the river as far as the park wall.’ 

‘ You are different from your kind. Well, I suppose 
such a wild place is a novelty, and so tempted you out 
of bed?’ 

‘ Not altogether a novelty. I like it.’ 

The youth seemed averse to explanation. 

‘ You must, you must ; to go cock-watching the 
morning after a journey of fourteen or sixteen hours. 
But there’s no accounting for tastes, and I am glad to 
see that yours are no meaner. After breakfast, but not 
before, I shall be good for a ten miles’ walk, Master 
Smith.’ 

Certainly there seemed nothing exaggerated in that 
assertion. Mr. Swancourt by daylight showed himself 
to be a man who, in common with the other two people 
under his roof, Had really strong claims to be considered 
handsome, — handsome, that is, in the sense in which 
the moon is bright : the ravines and valleys which, on a 
close inspection, are seen to diversify its surface being 
left out of the argument. His face was of a tint that 
never deepened upon his cheeks nor lightened upon his 
forehead, but remained uniform throughout; the usual 
neutral salmon-colour of a man who feeds well — not to 
say too well — and does not think hard; every pore 
being in visible working order. His tout ensemble was 
that of a highly improved class of farmer, dressed up 
in the wrong clothes ; that of a firm-standing perpen- 
24 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


dicular man, whose fall would have been backwards in 
direction if he had ever lost his balance. 

The vicar’s background was at present what a vicar’s 
background should be, his study. Here the consistency 
ends. All along the chimneypiece were ranged bottles 
of horse, pig, and cow medicines, and against the wall 
was a high table, made up of the fragments of an old 
oak lych-gate. Upon this stood stuffed specimens of 
owls, divers, and gulls, and over them bunches of wheat 
and barley ears, labelled with the date of the year that 
produced them. Some cases and shelves, more or less 
laden with books, the prominent titles of which were 
Dr. Brown’s ‘ Notes on the Romans,’ Dr. Smith’s 
‘ Notes on the Corinthians,’ and Dr. Robinson’s ‘ Notes 
on the Galatians, Ephesians, and Philippians,’ just saved 
the character of the place, in spite of a girl’s doll’s- 
house standing above them, a marine aquarium in the 
window, and Elfride’s hat hanging on its corner. 

1 Business, business ! ’ said Mr. Swancourt after 
breakfast. He began to find it necessary to act the 
part of a fly-wheel towards the somewhat irregular 
forces of his visitor. 

They prepared to go to the church; the vicar, on 
second thoughts, mounting his coal-black mare to avoid 
exerting his foot too much at starting. Stephen said 
he should want a man to assist him. ‘ Worm ! ’ the 
vicar shouted. 

A minute or two after a voice was heard round the 
corner of the building, mumbling, ‘ Ah, I used to be 
strong enough, but ’tis altered now ! Well, there, I’m 
as independent as one here and there, even if they do 
write ’squire after their names.’ 

‘ What’s the matter ? ’ said the vicar, as William 
Worm appeared; when the remarks were repeated to 
him. 

‘ Worm says some very true things sometimes,’ Mr. 
Swancourt said, turning to Stephen. ‘ Now, as regards 
25 


c 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


that word “ esquire.” Why, Mr. Smith, that word 
“ esquire ” is gone to the dogs, — used on the letters of 
every jackanapes who has a black coat. Anything else, 
Worm?’ 

‘ Ay, the folk have begun frying again ! ' 

* Dear me ! Fm sorry to hear that/ 

‘Yes/ Worm said groaningly to Stephen, ‘I've got 
such a noise in my head that there's no living night 
nor day. Tis just for all the world like people frying 
fish : fry, fry, fry, all day long in my poor head, till I 
don't know whe’r I'm here or yonder. There, God 
A'mighty will find it out sooner or later, I hope, and 
relieve me.' 

‘ Now, my deafness,' said Mr. Swancourt impres- 
sively, ‘is a dead silence; but William Worm's is that 
of people frying fish in his head. Very remarkable, 
isn’t it ? ’ 

‘ I can hear the frying-pan a-fizzing as naterel as life,’ 
said Worm corroboratively. 

‘ Yes, it is remarkable/ said Mr. Smith. 

‘Very peculiar, very peculiar/ echoed the vicar; and 
they all then followed the path up the hill, bounded on 
each side by a little stone wall, from which gleamed 
fragments of quartz and blood-red marbles, apparently 
of inestimable value, in their setting of brown alluvium. 
Stephen walked with the dignity of a man close to the 
horse’s head, Worm stumbled along a stone’s throw in 
the rear, and Elfride was nowhere in particular, yet 
everywhere ; sometimes in front, sometimes behind, 
sometimes at the sides, hovering about the procession 
like a butterfly; not definitely engaged in travelling, 
yet somehow chiming in at points with the general 
progress. 

The vicar explained things as he went on : ‘ The 
fact is, Mr. Smith, I didn't want this bother of church 
restoration at all, but it was necessary to do something 
in self-defence, on account of those d dissenters : 

26 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


I use the word in its scriptural meaning, of course, not 
as an expletive/ 

‘ How very odd ! ’ said Stephen, with the concern 
demanded of serious friendliness. 

* Odd ? That’s nothing to how it is in the parish of 

Twinkley. Both the churchwardens are ; there, I 

won’t say what they are ; and the clerk and the sexton 
as well.’ 

‘ How very strange ! ’ said Stephen. 

* Strange ? My dear sir, that’s nothing to how it is 
in the parish of Sinnerton. However, as to our own 
parish, I hope we shall make some progress soon.’ 

‘ You must trust to circumstances.’ 

‘There are no circumstances to trust to. We may 
as well trust in Providence if we trust at all. But here 
we are. A wild place, isn’t it ? But I like it on such 
days as these.’ 

The churchyard was entered on this side by a stone 
stile, over which having clambered, you remained still 
on the wild hill, the within not being so divided from 
the without as to obliterate the sense of open freedom. 
A delightful place to be buried in, postulating that 
delight can accompany a man to his tomb under any 
circumstances. There was nothing horrible in this 
churchyard, in the shape of tight mounds bonded with 
sticks, which shout imprisonment in the ears rather 
than whisper rest; or trim garden-flowers, which only 
raise images of people in new black crape and white 
handkerchiefs coming to tend them; or wheel-marks, 
which remind us of hearses and mourning coaches ; or 
cypress-bushes, which make a parade of sorrow; or 
coffin-boards and bones lying behind trees, showing 
that we are only leaseholders of our graves. No; 
nothing but long, wild, untutored grass, diversifying the 
forms of the mounds it covered, — themselves irregularly 
shaped, with no eye to effect ; the impressive presence 
of the old mountain that all this was a part of being 
2 7 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


nowhere excluded by disguising art. Outside were 
similar slopes and similar grass; and then the serene 
impassive sea, visible to a width of half the horizon, 
and meeting the eye with the effect of a vast con- 
cave, like the interior of a blue vessel. Detached 
rocks stood upright afar, a collar of foam girding their 
bases, and repeating in its whiteness the plumage of 
a countless multitude of gulls that restlessly hovered 
about. 

‘Now, Worm!’ said Mr. Swancourt sharply; and 
Worm started into an attitude of attention at once to 
receive orders. Stephen and himself were then left in 
possession, and the work went on till early in the 
afternoon, when dinner was announced by Unity of 
the vicarage kitchen running up the hill without a 
bonnet. 

Elfride did not make her appearance inside the 
building till late in the afternoon, and came then by 
special invitation from Stephen during dinner. She 
looked so intensely living and full of movement as she 
came into the old silent place, that young Smith’s world 
began to be lit by ‘the purple light’ in all its definite- 
ness. Worm was got rid of by sending him to measure 
the height of the tower. 

What could she do but come close — so close that a 
minute arc of her skirt touched his foot — and asked 
him how he was getting on with his sketches, and set 
herself to learn the principles of practical mensuration as 
applied to irregular buildings ? Then she must ascend 
the pulpit to re-imagine for the hundredth time how it 
would seem to be a preacher. 

Presently she leant over the front of the pulpit. 

‘ Don’t you tell papa, will you, Mr. Smith, if I tell 
you something?’ she said with a sudden impulse to 
make a confidence. 

‘ Oh no, that I won’t,’ said he, staring up. 

28 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


* Well, I write papa’s sermons for him very often, and 
he preaches them better than he does his own ; and then 
afterwards he talks to people and to me about what he 
said in his sermon to-day, and forgets that I wrote it 
for him. Isn’t it absurd ? ’ 

‘ How clever you must be ! ’ said Stephen. ‘ I 
couldn’t write a sermon for the world.’ 

4 Oh, it’s easy enough,’ she said, descending from 
the pulpit and coming close to him to explain more 
vividly. ‘You do it like this. Did you ever play a 
game of forfeits called “ When is it ? where is it ? what 
is it ? ’” 

‘ No, never.’ 

‘ Ah, that’s a pity, because writing a sermon is very 
much like playing that game. You take the text. You 
think, why is it ? what is it ? and so on. You put that 
down under “ Generally.” Then you proceed to the 
First, Secondly, and Thirdly. Papa won’t have Fourthlys 
— says they are all my eye. Then you have a final 
Collectively, several pages of this being put in great 
black brackets, writing opposite, “ Leave this out if the 
farmers are falling asleep .” Then comes your In Con- 
clusion, then A Few Words And I Have Done. Well, 
all this time you have put on the back of each page, 
“ Keep your voice down ” — I mean,’ she added, correcting 
herself, ‘ that’s how I do in papa’s sermon-book, because 
otherwise he gets louder and louder, till at last he shouts 
like a farmer up a-field. Oh, papa is so funny in some 
things ! ’ 

Then, after this childish burst of confidence, she 
was frightened, as if warned by womanly instinct, which 
for the moment her ardour had outrun, that she had 
been too forward to a comparative stranger. 

Elfride saw her father then, and went away into the 
wind, being caught by a gust as she ascended the 
churchyard slope, in which gust she had the motions, 
without the motives, of a hoiden ; the grace, without the 
29 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


self-consciousness, of a pirouetter. She conversed for 
a minute or two with her father, and proceeded home- 
ward, Mr. Swancourt coming on to the church to 
Stephen. The wind had freshened his warm complexion 
as it freshens the glow of a brand. He was in a mood 
of jollity, and watched Elfride down the hill with a 
smile. 

'You little flyaway! you look wild enough now/ he 
said, and turned to Stephen. ‘ But she’s not a wild 
child at all, Mr. Smith. As steady as you; and that 
you are steady I see from your diligence here.’ 

‘ I think Miss Swancourt very clever,’ Stephen 
observed. 

'Yes, she is; certainly, she is,’ said papa, turning 
his voice as much as possible to the neutral tone of 
disinterested criticism. * Now, Smith, I’ll tell you some- 
thing ; but she mustn’t know it for the world — not for 
the world, mind, for she insists upon keeping it a dead 
secret. Why, she writes my sermons for me often ^ and a 
very good job she makes of them ! ’ 

‘ She can do anything.’ 

‘ She can do that. The little rascal has the very 
trick of the trade. But, mind you, Smith, not a word 
about it to her, not a single word ! ’ 

‘ Not a word,’ said Smith. 

‘ Look there,’ said Mr. Swancourt. * What do you 
think of my roofing?’ He pointed with his walking- 
stick at the chancel roof. 

* Did you do that, sir ? ’ 

‘Yes, I worked in shirt-sleeves all the time that was 
going on. I pulled down the old rafters, fixed the new 
ones, put on the battens, slated the roof, all with my 
own hands, Worm being my assistant. We worked like 
slaves, didn’t we, Worm ? ’ 

‘ Ay, sure, we did ; harder than some here and there 
— hee, heel’ said William Worm, cropping up from 
somewhere. ‘ Like slaves, ’a b’lieve — hee, hee ! And 
30 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 

weren't ye foaming mad, sir, when the nails wouldn’t 
go straight ? Mighty 1 1 There, ’tisn’t so bad to cuss 
and keep it in as to cuss and let it out, is it, sir ? ’ 

* Well — why ? ’ 

‘Because you, sir, when ye were a-putting on the 
roof, only used to cuss in your mind, which is, I 
suppose, no harm at all/ 

‘ I don’t think you know what goes on in my mind, 
Worm/ 

* Oh, doan’t I, sir — hee, hee ! Maybe I’m but a 
poor wambling thing, sir, and can’t read much ; but I 
can spell as well as some here and there. Doan’t ye 
mind, sir, that blustrous night when ye asked me to 
hold the candle to ye in yer workshop, when you were 
making a new chair for the chancel ? * 

‘ Yes ; what of that ? 

*1 stood with the candle, and you said you liked 
company, if ’twas only a dog or cat — maning me ; and 
the chair wouldn’t do nohow/ 

‘Ah, I remember/ 

‘No; the chair wouldn’t do nohow. ’A was very 
well to look at ; but, Lord ! * 

‘ Worm, how often have I corrected you for irreverent 
speaking ? ’ 

‘ — ’A was very well to look at, but you couldn’t sit 
in the chair nohow. 'Twas all a- twist wi’ the chair, 
like the letter Z, directly you sat down upon the chair. 
“ Get up. Worm,” says you, when you seed the chair go 
all a-sway wi’ me. Up you took the chair, and flung en 
like fire and brimstone to t’other end of your shop — all 
in a passion. “ Damn the chair 1 ” says I. “Just what 
I was thinking,” says you, sir. “ I could see it in your 
face, sir,” says I, “ and I hope you and God will forgi’e 
me for saying what you wouldn’t.” To save your life 
you couldn’t help laughing, sir, at a poor wambler 
reading your thoughts so plain. Ay, I’m as wise as one 
here and there/ 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


‘ I thought you had better have a practical man to 
go over the church and tower with you/ Mr. Swancourt 
said to Stephen the following morning, ‘ so I got Lord 
Luxellian’s permission to send for a man when you 
came. I told him to be there at ten o’clock. He’s a 
very intelligent man, and he will tell you all you want 
to know about the state of the walls. His name is 
John Smith.’ 

Elfride did not like to be seen again at the church 
with Stephen. ‘ I will watch here for your appearance 
at the top of the tower,’ she said laughingly. ‘ I shall 
see your figure against the sky.’ 

* And when I am up there I’ll wave my handkerchief 
to you, Miss Swancourt,’ said Stephen. ‘ In twelve 
minutes from this present moment,’ he added, looking 
at his watch, * I’ll be at the summit and look out for 
you.’ 

She went round to the corner of the shrubbery, 
whence she could watch him down the slope leading 
to the foot of the hill on which the church stood. 
There she saw waiting for him a white spot — a mason 
in his working clothes. Stephen met this man and 
stopped. 

To her surprise, instead of their moving on to the 
churchyard, they both leisurely sat down upon a stone 
close by their meeting-place, and remained as if in 
deep conversation. Elfride looked at the time ; nine 
of the twelve minutes had passed, and Stephen showed 
no signs of moving. More minutes passed — she grew 
cold with waiting, and shivered. It was not till the 
end of a quarter of an hour that they began to slowly 
wend up the hill at a snail’s pace. 

‘ Rude and unmannerly ! ’ she said to herself, 
colouring with pique. ‘ Anybody would think he was 
in love with that horrid mason instead of with ’ 

The sentence remained unspoken, though not un- 
thought. 


32 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


She returned to the porch. 

‘ Is the man you sent for a lazy, sit-still, do-nothing 
kind of man ? ’ she inquired of her father. 

‘No,’ he said surprised; ‘quite the reverse. He 
is Lord Luxellian’s master-mason, John Smith.’ 

‘ Oh,’ said Elfride indifferently, and returned towards 
her bleak station, and waited and shivered again. It 
w r as a trifle, after all — a childish thing — looking out 
from a tower and waving a handkerchief. But her new 
friend had promised, and why should he tease her so ? 
The effect of a blow is as proportionate to the texture 
of the object struck as to its own momentum ; and she 
had such a superlative capacity for being wounded that 
little hits struck her hard. 

It was not till the end of half an hour that two 
figures were seen above the parapet of the dreary old 
pile, motionless as bitterns on a ruined mosque. Even 
then Stephen was not true enough to perform what he 
was so courteous to promise, and he vanished without 
making a sign. 

He returned at midday. Elfride looked vexed when 
unconscious that his eyes were upon her; when con- 
scious, severe. . However, her attitude of coldness had 
long outlived the coldness itself, and she could no 
longer utter feigned words of indifference. 

‘ Ah, you weren’t kind to keep me waiting in the cold, 
and break your promise,’ she said at last reproachfully, 
in tones too low for her father’s powers of hearing. 

‘ Forgive, forgive me ! ’ said Stephen with dismay. 
‘ I had forgotten — quite forgotten ! Something pre- 
vented my remembering.’ 

‘ Any further explanation ? ’ said Miss Capricious, 
pouting. 

He was silent for a few minutes, and looked 
askance. 

‘ None,’ he said, with the accent of one who con- 
cealed a sin. 


33 


c 


V 

‘ Bosom’d high in tufted trees. 1 


It was breakfast time. 

As seen from the vicarage dining-room, which took 
a warm tone of light from the fire, the weather and 
scene outside seemed to have stereotyped themselves 
in unrelieved shades of gray. The long-armed trees 
and shrubs of juniper, cedar, and pine varieties, were 
grayish-black; those of the broad-leaved sort, together 
with the herbage, were grayish-green ; the eternal hills 
and tower behind them were grayish-brown ; the sky, 
dropping behind all, gray of the purest melancholy. 

Yet in spite of this sombre artistic effect, the morn- 
ing was not one which tended to lower the spirits. It 
was even cheering. For it did not rain, nor was rain 
likely to fall for many days to come. 

Elfride had turned from the table towards the fire 
and was idly elevating a hand-screen before her face, 
when she heard the click of a little gate outside. 

‘ Ah, here’s the postman ! * she said, as a shuffling, 
active man came through an opening in the shrubbery 
and across the lawn. She vanished, and met him in the 
porch, afterwards coming in with her hands behind her 
back. 


34 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


‘ How many are there ? Three for papa, one foi 
Mr. Smith, none for Miss Swancourt. And, papa, 
look here, one of yours is from — whom do you think ? 
— Lord Luxellian. And it has something hard in it 
— a lump of something. I’ve been feeling it through 
the envelope, and can’t think what it is.’ 

‘ What does Luxellian write for, I wonder ? ’ Mr. 
Swancourt had said simultaneously with her words. 
He handed Stephen his letter, and took his own, 
putting on his countenance a higher class of look than 
was customary, as became a poor gentleman who was 
going to read a letter from a peer. 

Stephen read his missive with a countenance quite 
the reverse of the vicar’s. 

* Percy Place, Thursday Evening . 

‘Dear Smith, — Old H. is in a towering rage with 
you for being so long about the church sketches. 
Swears you are more trouble than you are worth. He 
says I am to write and say you are to stay no longer 
on any consideration — that he would have done it all 
in three hours very easily. I told him that you were 
not like an experienced hand, which he seemed to 
forget, but it did not make much difference. However, 
between you and me privately, if I were you I would not 
alarm myself for a day or so, if I were not inclined to 
return. I would make out the week and finish my spree. 
He will blow up just as much if you appear here on 
Saturday as if you keep away till Monday morning. — 
Yours very truly, 

‘Simpkins Jenkins. 

4 Dear me — very awkward ! ’ said Stephen, rather 
en Vair> and confused with the kind of confusion that 
assails an understrapper when he has been enlarged 
by accident to the dimensions of a superior, and is 
somewhat rudely pared down to his original size. 

35 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


‘ What is awkward ? ’ said Miss Swancourt. 

Smith by this time recovered his equanimity, and 
with it the professional dignity of an experienced 
architect. 

‘ Important business demands my immediate pre- 
sence in London, I regret to say/ he replied. 

‘ What ! Must you go at once ? 5 said Mr. Swan- 
court, looking over the edge of his letter. * Important 
business ? A young fellow like you to have important 
business ! ’ 

‘The truth is/ said Stephen blushing, and rather 
ashamed of having pretended even so slightly to a con- 
sequence which did not belong to him, — ‘ the truth 
is, Mr. Hewby has sent to say I am to come home ; 
and I must obey him.’ 

‘I see ; I see. It is politic to do so, you mean. 
Now I can see more than you think. You are to be 
his partner. I booked you for that directly I read 
his letter to me the other day, and the way he spoke 
of you. He thinks a great deal of you, Mr. Smith, or 
he wouldn’t be so anxious for your return.’ 

Unpleasant to Stephen such remarks as these could 
not sound ; to have the expectancy of partnership 
with one of the largest-practising architects in London 
thrust upon him was cheering, however untenable he 
felt the idea to be. He saw that, whatever Mr. Hewby 
might think, Mr. Swancourt certainly thought much 
of him to entertain such an idea on such slender 
ground as to be absolutely no ground at all. And 
then, unaccountably, his speaking face exhibited a 
cloud of sadness, which a reflection on the remote- 
ness of any such contingency could hardly have sufficed 
to cause. 

Elfride was struck with that look of his ; even Mr. 
Swancourt noticed it. 

‘Well/ he said cheerfully, ‘never mind that now. 
You must come again on your own account ; not on 
3 ^ 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


business. Come to see me as a visitor, you know — 
say, in your holidays — all you town men have holidays 
like schoolboys. When are they ? ’ 

‘ In August, I believe.’ 

‘Very well; come in August; and then you need 
not hurry away so. I am glad to get somebody decent 
to talk to, or at, in this outlandish ultima Thule . But, 
by the bye, I have something to say — you won’t go 
to-day ? ’ 

‘ No ; I need not,’ said Stephen hesitatingly. ‘ I 
am not obliged to get back before Monday morning.’ 

‘ Very well, then, that brings me to what I am 
going to propose. This is a letter from Lord Luxellian. 
I think you heard me speak of him as the resident 
landowner in this district, and patron of this living ? ’ 

‘ I — know of him.’ 

• He is in London now. It seems that he has 
run up on business for a day or two, and taken Lady 
Luxellian with him. He has written to ask me to go 
to his house, and search for a paper among his private 
memoranda, which he forgot to take with him.’ 

‘ What did he send in the letter ? ’ inquired 
Elfride. 

‘ The key of a private desk in which the papers 
are. He doesn’t like to trust such a matter to any 
body else. I have done such things for him before. 
And what I propose is, that we make an afternoon of 
it — all three of us. Go for a drive to Targan Bay, 
come home by way of Endelstow House ; and whilst 
I am looking over the documents you can ramble 
about the rooms where you like. I have the run of 
the house at any time, you know. The building, 
though nothing but a mass of gables outside, has a 
splendid hall, staircase, and gallery within; and there 
are a few good pictures.’ 

‘ Yes, there are,’ said Stephen. 

‘ Have you seen the place, then ? J 

37 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


‘ I saw it as I came by,’ he said hastily. 

‘ Oh yes ; but I was alluding to the interior. And 
the church — St. Eval’s — is much older than our St. 
Agnes’ here. I do duty in that and this alternately, 
you know. The fact is, I ought to have some help; 
riding across that park for two miles on a wet morning 
is not at all the thing. If my constitution were not 
well seasoned, as thank God it is,’ — here Mr. Swan- 
court looked down his front, as if his constitution 
were visible there, — ‘ I should be coughing and barking 
all the year round. And when the family goes away, 
there are only about three servants to preach to when 
I get there. Well, that shall be the arrangement, then. 
Elfride, you will like to go ? ’ 

Elfride assented ; and the little breakfast-party sepa- 
rated. Stephen rose to go and take a few final mea- 
surements at the church, the vicar following him to 
the door with a mysterious expression of inquiry on 
his face. 

‘You’ll put up with our not having family prayer 
this morning, I hope ? ’ he whispered. 

‘ Yes ; quite so,’ said Stephen. 

‘ To tell you the truth,’ he continued in the same 
undertone, ‘ we don’t make a regular thing of it ; but 
when we have strangers visiting us, I am strongly of 
opinion that it is the proper thing to do, and I always 
do it. I am very strict on that point. But you, 
Smith, there is something in your face which makes 
me feel quite at home ; no nonsense about you, in 
short. Ah, it reminds me of a splendid story I used 
to hear when I was a helter-skelter young fellow — 
such a story ! But ’ — here the vicar shook his head 
self-forbiddingly, and grimly laughed. 

‘Was it a good story?’ said- young Smith, smiling 
too. 

‘ Oh yes ; but ’tis too bad — too bad ! Couldn’t tell 

it to you for the world ! ’ 

38 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


Stephen went across the lawn, hearing the vicar 
chuckling privately at the recollection as he withdrew. 

They started at three o’clock. The gray morning 
had resolved itself into an afternoon bright with a 
pale pervasive sunlight, without the sun itself being 
visible. Lightly they trotted along — the wheels nearly 
silent, the horse’s hoofs clapping, almost ringing, upon 
the hard, white, turnpike road as it followed the level 
ridge in a perfectly straight line, seeming to be absorbed 
ultimately by the white of the sky. 

Targan Bay — which had the merit of being easily 
got at — was duly visited. They then swept round by 
innumerable lanes, in which not twenty consecutive 
yards were either straight or level, to the domain of 
Lord Luxellian. A woman with a double chin and 
thick neck, like Queen Anne by Dahl, threw open the 
lodge gate, a little boy standing behind her. 

‘ I’ll give him something, poor little fellow,’ said 
Elfride, pulling out her purse and hastily opening it. 
From the interior of her purse a host of bits of paper, 
like a flock of white birds, floated into the air, and were 
blown about in all directions. 

‘ Well, to be sure ! ’ said Stephen with a slight 
laugh. 

' What the dickens is all that ? ’ said Mr. Swancourt. 
‘ Not halves of bank-notes, Elfride ? ’ 

Elfride looked annoyed and guilty. ‘ They are only 
something of mine, papa,’ she faltered, whilst Stephen 
leapt out, and, assisted by the lodge-keeper’s little boy, 
crept about round the wheels and horse’s hoofs till the 
papers were all gathered together again. He handed 
them back to her, and remounted. 

« I suppose you are wondering what those scraps 
were ? ’ she said, as they bowled along up the sycamore 
avenue. ‘And so I may as well tell you. They are 
notes for a romance I am writing.’ 

39 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


She could not help colouring at the confession, much 
as she tried to avoid it. 

‘ A story, do you mean ? ’ said Stephen, Mr. Swan- 
court half listening, and catching a word of the con- 
versation now and then. 

‘Yes; The Court of Kelly on Castle; a romance of 
the fifteenth century. Such writing is out of date now, 
I know ; but I like doing it.’ 

‘ A romance carried in a purse ! If a highwayman 
were to rob you, he would be taken in.’ 

‘ Yes ; that’s my way of carrying manuscript. The 
real reason is, that I mostly write bits of it on scraps of 
paper when I am on horseback ; and I put them there 
for convenience.’ 

‘ What are you going to do with your romance when 
you have written it ? ’ said Stephen. 

‘ I don’t know,’ she replied, and turned her head to 
look at the prospect. 

For by this time they had reached the precincts of 
Endelstow House. Driving through an ancient gate- 
way of dun - coloured stone, spanned by the high- 
shouldered Tudor arch, they found themselves in a 
spacious court, closed by a facade on each of its 
three sides. The substantial portions of the existing 
building dated from the reign of Henry VIII. ; but 
the picturesque and sheltered spot had been the 
site of an erection of a much earlier date. A 
licence to crenellate mansum infra maneriur?i suum 
was granted by Edward II. to ‘ Hugo Luxellen 
chivaler ; ’ but though the faint outline of the ditch 
and mound was visible at points, no sign of the 
original building remained. 

The windows on all sides were long and many- 
mullioned; the roof lines broken up by dormer lights 
of the same pattern. The apex stones of these dormers, 
together with those of the gables, were surmounted by 
grotesque figures in rampant, passant, and couchant 
4 ° 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


variety. Tall octagonal and twisted chimneys thrust 
themselves high up into the sky, surpassed in height, 
however, by some poplars and sycamores at the back, 
which showed their gently rocking summits over ridge 
and parapet. In the corners of the court polygonal 
bays, whose surfaces were entirely occupied by buttresses 
and windows, broke into the squareness of the enclosure ; 
and a far-projecting oriel, springing from a fantastic 
series of mouldings, overhung the archway of the chief 
entrance to the house. 

As Mr. Swancourt had remarked, he had the freedom 
of the mansion in the absence of its owner. Upon a 
statement of his errand they were all admitted to the 
library, and left entirely to themselves. Mr. Swan- 
court was soon up to his eyes in the examination 
of a heap of papers he had taken from the cabinet 
described by his correspondent. Stephen and Elfride 
had nothing to do but to wander about till her father 
was ready. 

Elfride entered the gallery, and Stephen followed her 
without seeming to do so. It was a long sombre 
apartment, enriched with fittings a century or so later 
in style than the walls of the mansion. Pilasters of 
Renaissance workmanship supported a cornice from 
which sprang a curved ceiling, panelled in the awkward 
twists and curls of the period. The old Gothic quarries 
still remained in the upper portion of the large window 
at the end, though they had made way for a more 
modern form of glazing elsewhere. 

Stephen was at one end of the gallery looking towards 
Elfride, who stood in the midst, beginning to feel some- 
what depressed by the society of Luxellian shades of 
cadaverous complexion fixed by Holbein, Kneller, and 
Lely, and seeming to gaze at and through her in a 
moralizing mood. The silence, which cast almost a 
spell upon them, was broken by the sudden opening of 
a door at the far end. 


D 


4 1 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


Out bounded a pair of little girls, lightly yet warmly 
dressed. Their eyes were sparkling; their hair swing- 
ing about and around ; their red mouths laughing with 
unalloyed gladness. 

* Ah, Miss Swancourt : dearest Elfie ! we heard you. 
Are you going to stay here ? You are our little mamma, 
are you not — our big mamma is gone to London/ said 
one. 

‘ Let me tiss you/ said the other, in appearance very 
much like the first, but to a smaller pattern. 

Their pink cheeks and yellow hair were speedily 
intermingled with the folds of Elfride’ s dress ; she then 
stooped and tenderly embraced them both. 

‘ Such an odd thing/ said Elfride, smiling, and turn 
ing to Stephen. ‘ They have taken it into their heads 
lately to call me “little mamma/’ because I am very 
fond of them, and wore a dress the other day something 
like one of Lady Luxellian’s.’ 

These two young creatures were the Honourable 
Mary and the Honourable Kate — scarcely appearing 
large enough as yet to bear the weight of such pon- 
derous prefixes. They were the only two children of 
Lord and Lady Luxellian, and, as it proved, had 
been left at home during their parents’ temporary 
absence, in the custody of nurse and governess. Lord 
Luxellian was dotingly fond of the children; rather 
indifferent towards his wife, since she had begun 
to show an inclination not to please him by giving 
him a boy. 

All children instinctively ran after Elfride, looking 
upon her more as an unusually nice large specimen of 
their own tribe than as a grown-up elder. It had now 
become an established rule, that whenever she met 
them — indoors or out-of-doors, weekdays or Sundays — 
they were to be severally pressed against her face and 
bosom for the space of a quarter of a minute, and other- 
wise made much of on the delightful system of cumu- 
42 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


lative epithet and caress to which unpractised girls will 
occasionally abandon themselves. 

A look of misgiving by the youngsters towards the 
door by which they had entered directed attention to 
a maid-servant appearing from the same quarter, to put 
an end to this sweet freedom of the poor Honourables 
Mary and Kate. 

‘ I wish you lived here, Miss Swancourt,’ piped one 
like a melancholy bullfinch. 

‘ So do I,’ piped the other like a rather more 
melancholy bullfinch. ‘ Mamma can’t play with us 
so nicely as you do. I don’t think she ever learnt 
playing when she was little. When shall we come to 
see you ? ’ 

‘ As soon as you like, dears/ 

‘ And sleep at your house all night ? That’s what I 
mean by coming to see you. I don’t care to see people 
with hats and bonnets on, and all standing up and 
walking about.’ 

‘ As soon as we can get mamma’s permission you 
shall come and stay as long as ever you like. Good- 
bye ! ’ 

The prisoners were then led off, Elfride again turning 
her attention to her guest, whom she had left standing 
at the remote end of the gallery. On looking around 
for him he was nowhere to be seen. Elfride stepped 
down to the library, thinking he might have rejoined 
her father there. But Mr. Swancourt, now cheerfully 
illuminated by a pair of candles, was still alone, un- 
tying packets of letters and papers, and tying them 
up again. 

As Elfride did not stand on a sufficiently intimate 
footing with the object of her interest to justify her, as 
a proper young lady, to commence the active search 
for him that youthful impulsiveness prompted, and as, 
nevertheless, for a nascent reason connected with those 
divinely cut lips of his, she did not like him to be absent 
43 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


from her side, she wandered desultorily back to the oak 
staircase, pouting and casting her eyes about in hope of 
discerning his boyish figure. 

Though daylight still prevailed in the rooms, the 
corridors were in a depth of shadow — chill, sad, and 
silent ; and it was only by looking along them towards 
light spaces beyond that anything or anybody could be 
discerned therein. One of these light spots she found 
to be caused by a side-door with glass panels in the 
upper part. Elfride opened it, and found herself con- 
fronting a secondary or inner lawn, separated from the 
principal law" front by a shrubbery. 

‘And now she saw a perplexing sight. At right 
angles to the face of the wing she had emerged from, 
and within a few feet of the door, jutted out another 
wing of the mansion, lower and with less architectural 
character. Immediately opposite to her, in the wall 
of this wing, was a large broad window, having its 
blind drawn down, and illuminated by a light in the 
room it screened. 

On the blind was a shadow from somebody close 
inside it — a person in profile. The profile was un- 
mistakably that of Stephen. It was just possible to 
see that his arms were uplifted, and that his hands 
held an article of some kind. Then another shadow 
appeared — also in profile — and came close to him. 
This was the shadow of a woman. She turned 
her back towards Stephen : he lifted and held out 
what now proved to be a shawl or mantle — placed 
it carefully — so carefully — round the lady ; disap- 
peared ; reappeared in her front — fastened the 
mantle. Did he then kiss her? Surely not. Yet 
the motion ?night have been a kiss. Then both 
shadows swelled to colossal dimensions — grew dis- 
torted — vanished. 

Two minutes elapsed. 

‘ Ah, Miss Swancourt ! I am so glad to find 
44 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


you. I was looking for you,’ said a voice at her 
elbow — Stephen’s voice. She stepped into the 
passage. 

‘ Do you know any of the members of this establish- 
ment?’ said she. 

‘ Not a single one : how should I ? ’ he replied. 


VI 

•Fare thee weel awhile!’ 


Simultaneously with the conclusion of 

Stephen’s remark, the sound of the closing of 
an external door in their immediate neighbourhood 
reached Elfride’s ears. It came from the further side 
of the wing containing the illuminated room. She 
then discerned, by the aid of the dusky departing 
light, a figure, whose sex was undistinguishable, walk- 
ing down the gravelled path by the parterre towards 
the river. The figure grew fainter, and vanished 
under the trees. 

Mr. Swancourt’s voice was heard calling out their 
names from a distant corridor in the body of the 
building. They retraced their steps, and found him 
with his coat buttoned up and his hat on, awaiting 
their advent in a mood of self-satisfaction at having 
brought his search to a successful close. The carriage 
was brought round, and without further delay the trio 
drove away from the mansion, under the echoing 
gateway arch, and along by the leafless sycamores, as 
the stars began to kindle their trembling lights behind 
the maze of branches and twigs. 

No words were spoken either by youth or maiden. 

- 46 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


Her unpractised mind was completely occupied in 
fathoming its recent acquisition. The young man 
who had inspired her with such novelty of feeling, who 
had come directly from London on business to her 
father, having been brought by chance to Endelstow 
House had, by some means or other, acquired the 
privilege of approaching some lady he had found 
therein, and of honouring her by pctits soins of a 
marked kind, — all in the space of half an hour. 

What room were they standing in ? thought Elfride. 
As nearly as she could guess, it was Lord Luxellian’s 
business-room, or office. What people were in the 
house? None but the governess and servants, as far 
as she knew, and of these he had professed a total 
ignorance. Had the person she had indistinctly seen 
leaving the house anything to do with the performance ? 
It was impossible to say without appealing to the 
culprit himself, and that she would never do. The 
more Elfride reflected, the more certain did it appear 
that the meeting was a chance rencounter, and not 
an appointment. On the ultimate inquiry as to the 
individuality of the woman, Elfride at once assumed 
that she could not be an inferior. Stephen Smith 
was not the man to care about passages-at-love with 
women beneath him. Though gentle, ambition was 
visible in his kindling eyes ; he evidently hoped for 
much ; hoped indefinitely, but extensively. Elfride 
was puzzled, and being puzzled, was, by a natural 
sequence of girlish sensations, vexed with him. No 
more pleasure came in recognizing that from liking to 
attract him she was getting on to love him, boyish as 
he was and innocent as he had seemed. 

They reached the bridge which formed a link between 
the eastern and western halves of the parish. Situated 
in a valley that was bounded outwardly by the sea, it 
formed a point of depression from which the road 
ascended with great steepness to West Endelstow and 
47 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


the Vicarage. There was no absolute necessity for 
either of them to alight, but as it was the vicar’s custom 
after a long journey to humour the horse in making 
this winding ascent, Elfride, moved by an imitative 
instinct, suddenly jumped out when Pleasant had just 
begun to adopt the deliberate stalk he associated with 
this portion of the road. 

The young man seemed glad of any excuse for break' 
ing the silence. * Why, Miss Swancourt, what a risk)) 
thing to do ! ’ he exclaimed, immediately following hei 
example by jumping down on the other side. 

‘ Oh no, not at all,’ replied she coldly ; the shadow 
phenomenon at Endelstow House still paramount 
within her. 

Stephen walked along by himself for two or three 
minutes, wrapped in the rigid reserve dictated by her 
tone. Then apparently thinking that it was only for 
girls to pout, he came serenely round to her side, and 
offered his arm with Castilian gallantry, to assist her in 
ascending the remaining three-quarters of the steep. 

Here was a temptation : it was the first time in her 
life that Elfride had been treated as a grown-up woman 
in this way — offered an arm in a manner implying that 
she had a right to refuse it. Till to-night she had 
never received masculine attentions beyond those which 
might be contained in such homely remarks as i Elfride, 
give me your hand ; ’ ‘ Elfride, take hold of my arm,’ 
from her father. Her callow heart made an epoch of 
the incident; she considered her array of feelings, for 
and against. Collectively they were for taking this 
offered arm; the single one of pique determined her 
to punish Stephen by refusing. 

‘ No, thank you, Mr. Smith; I can get along better 
by myself.’ 

It was Elfride’s first fragile attempt at browbeating 
a lover. Fearing more the issue of such an undertaking 
than what a gentle young man might think of her 
48 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


waywardness, she immediately afterwards determined to 
please herself by reversing her statement. 

‘ On second thoughts, I will take it,’ she said. 

They slowly went their way up the hill, a few yards 
behind the carriage. 

‘ How silent you are, Miss Swancourt ! ’ Stephen 
observed. 

‘ Perhaps I think you silent too,’ she returned. 

‘ I may have reason to be.’ 

‘ Scarcely ; it is sadness that makes people silent, 
and you can have none.’ 

‘You don’t know: I have a trouble; though some 
might think it less a trouble than a dilemma.’ 

‘ What is it ? ’ she asked impulsively. 

Stephen hesitated. ‘ I might tell,’ he said ; ‘ at the 
same time, perhaps, it is as well ’ 

She let go his arm and imperatively pushed it from 
her, tossing her head. She had just learnt that a good 
deal of dignity is lost by asking a question to which 
an answer is refused, even ever so politely ; for though 
politeness does good service in cases of requisition and 
compromise, it but little helps a direct refusal. ‘ I 
don’t wish to know anything of it; I don’t wish it,’ 
she went on. ‘ The carriage is waiting for us at the 
top of the hill ; we must get in ; ’ and Elfride flitted to 
the front. ‘ Papa, here is your Elfride ! ’ she exclaimed 
to the dusky figure of the old gentleman, as she sprang 
up and sank by his side without deigning to accept aid 
from Stephen. 

‘ Ah, yes ! ’ uttered the vicar in artificially alert tones, 
awaking from a most profound sleep, and suddenly 
preparing to alight. 

‘ Why, what are you doing, papa ? We are not home 
yet.’ 

‘ Oh no, no ; of course not ; we are not at home 
yet,’ Mr. Swancourt said very hastily, endeavouring to 
dodge back to his original position with the air of a 
49 D 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


man who had not moved at all. ‘ The fact is I was so 
lost in deep meditation that I forgot whereabouts we 
were.’ And in a minute the vicar was snoring again. 

That evening, being the last, seemed to throw an 
exceptional shade of sadness over Stephen Smith, and 
the repeated injunctions of the vicar,’ that he was to 
come and revisit them in the summer, apparently tended 
less to raise his spirits than to unearth some misgiving. 

He left them in the gray light of dawn, whilst the 
colours of earth were sombre, and the sun was yet 
hidden in the east. Elfride had fidgeted all night in 
her little bed lest none of the household should be 
awake soon enough to start him, and also lest she 
might miss seeing again the bright eyes and curly hair, 
to which their owner’s possession of a hidden mystery 
added a deeper tinge of romance. To some extent — 
so soon does womanly interest take a solicitous turn — 
she felt herself responsible for his safe conduct. They 
breakfasted before daylight ; Mr. Swancourt, being more 
and more taken with his guest’s ingenuous appearance, 
having determined to rise early and bid him a friendly 
farewell. It was, however, rather to the vicar’s asto- 
nishment, that he saw Elfride walk in to the breakfast- 
table, candle in hand. 

Whilst William Worm performed his toilet (during 
which performance the inmates of the vicarage were 
always in the habit of waiting with exemplary patience), 
Elfride wandered desultorily to the summer house. 
Stephen followed her thither. The copse-covered valley 
was visible from this position, a mist now lying all along 
its length, hiding the stream which trickled through it, 
though the observers themselves were in clear air. 

They stood close together, leaning over the rustic 
balustrading which bounded the arbour on the outward 
side, and formed the crest of a steep slope beneath. 
Elfride constrainedly pointed out some features of the 
5o 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


distant uplands rising irregularly opposite. But the 
artistic eye was, either from nature or circumstance, 
very faint in Stephen now, and he only half attended to 
her description, as if he spared time from some other 
thought going on within him. 

‘ Well, good-bye,’ he said suddenly ; ‘ I must never 
see you again, I suppose, Miss Swancourt, in spite of 
invitations.’ 

His genuine tribulation played directly upon the 
delicate chords of her nature. She could afford to 
forgive him for a concealment or two. Moreover, the 
shyness which would not allow him to look her in the 
face lent bravery to her own eyes and tongue. 

‘ Oh, do come again, Mr. Smith ! ’ she said prettily. 

‘ I should delight in it ; but it will be better if I do 
not.’ 

‘Why?’ 

‘ Certain circumstances in connection with me make 
it undesirable. Not on my account; on yours.’ 

‘ Goodness ! As if anything in connection with you 
could hurt me,’ she said with serene supremacy; but 
seeing that this plan of treatment was inappropriate, 
she tuned a smaller note. ‘ Ah, I know why you will 
not come. You don’t want to. You’ll go home to 
London and to all the stirring people there, and will 
never want to see us any more ! ’ 

* You know I have no such reason.’ 

‘ And go on writing letters to the lady you are 
engaged to, just as before.’ 

‘ What does that mean ? I am not engaged.’ 

* You wrote a letter to a Miss Somebody ; I saw it 
in the letter-rack.’ 

‘ Pooh ! an elderly woman who keeps a stationer’s 
shop ; and it was to tell her to keep my newspapers till 
I get back.’ 

‘ You needn’t have explained : it was not my business 
at all.’ Miss Elfride was rather relieved to hear that 
5i 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


statement, nevertheless. ‘And you won’t come again 
to see my father ? ’ she insisted. 

‘ I should like to — and to see you again, but ’ 

‘ Will you reveal to me that matter you hide ? ’ she 
interrupted petulantly. 

‘ No ; not now.’ 

She could not but go on, graceless as it might 
seem. 

‘Tell me this,’ she importuned with a trembling 
mouth. * Does any meeting of yours with a lady at 
Endelstow Vicarage clash with — any interest you may 
take in me ? ' 

He started a little. * It does not,’ he said emphati- 
cally ; and looked into the- pupils of her eyes with the 
confidence that only honesty can give, and even that 
to youth alone. 

The explanation had not come, but a gloom left her. 
She could not but believe that utterance. Whatever 
enigma might lie in the shadow on the blind, it was 
not an enigma of underhand passion. 

She turned towards the house, entering it through 
the conservatory. Stephen went round to the front 
door. Mr. Swancourt was standing on the step in his 
slippers. Worm was adjusting a buckle in the harness, 
and murmuring about his poor head; and everything 
was ready for Stephen’s departure. 

* You named August for your visit. August it shall 
be; that is, if you care for the society of such a 
fossilized Tory/ said Mr. Swancourt. 

Mr. Smith only responded hesitatingly, that he 
should like to come again. 

‘You said you would, and you must/ insisted 
Elfride, coming to the door and speaking under her 
father’s arm. 

Whatever reason the youth may have had for not 
wishing to enter the house as a guest, it no longer 
predominated. He promised, and bade them adieu, 
5 2 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


and got into the pony-carriage, which crept up the 
slope, and bore him out of their sight. 

‘ I never was so much taken with anybody in my 
life as I am with that young fellow — never ! I cannot 
understand it — can’t understand it anyhow,’ said Mr. 
Swancourt quite energetically to himself; and went 
indoors. 


VII 

'No more of me you knew, my love!’ 

STEPHEN SMITH revisited Endelstow Vicarage, 
agreeably to his promise. He had a genuine artistic 
reason for coming, though no such reason seemed to 
be required. Six-and-thirty old seat ends, of exquisite 
fifteenth-century workmanship, were rapidly decaying in 
an aisle of the church ; and it became politic to make 
drawings of their worm-eaten contours ere they were 
battered past recognition in the turmoil of the so-called 
restoration. 

He entered the house at sunset, and the world was 
pleasant again to the two fair-haired ones. A momen- 
tary pang of disappointment had, nevertheless, passed 
through Elfride when she casually discovered that he 
had not come that minute post-haste from London, but 
had reached the neighbourhood the previous evening. 
Surprise would have accompanied the feeling, had she 
not remembered that several tourists were haunting 
the coast at this season, and that Stephen might have 
chosen to do likewise. 

They did little besides chat that evening, Mr. 
Swancourt beginning to question his visitor, closely yet 
paternally, and in good part, on his hopes and pros- 
54 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


pects from the profession he had embraced. Stephen 
gave vague answers. The next day it rained. In the 
evening, when twenty-four hours of Elfride had com- 
pletely rekindled her admirer’s ardour, a game of chess 
was proposed between them. 

The game had its value in helping # on the develop- 
ments of their future. 

Elfride soon perceived that her opponent was but 
a learner. She next noticed that he had a very odd 
way of handling the pieces when castling or taking a 
man. Antecedently she would have supposed that 
the same performance must be gone through by all 
players in the same manner; she was taught by his 
differing action that all ordinary players, who learn the 
game by sight, unconsciously touch the men in a 
stereotyped way. This impression of indescribable 
oddness in Stephen’s touch culminated in speech when 
she saw him, at the taking of one of her bishops, push 
it aside with the taking man instead of lifting it as a 
preliminary to the move. 

‘ How strangely you handle the men, Mr. Smith ! ’ 

‘ Do I ? I am sorry for that.’ 

‘ Oh no — don’t be sorry ; it is not a matter great 
enough for sorrow. But who taught you to play ? ’ 

‘ Nobody, Miss Swancourt,’ he said. ‘ I learnt from 
a book lent me by my friend Mr. Knight, the noblest 
man in the world.’ 

‘ But you have seen people play ? ’ 

1 1 have never seen the playing of a single game. 
This is the first time I ever had the opportunity of 
playing with a living opponent. I have worked out 
many games from books, and studied the reasons of the 
different moves, but that is all.’ 

This was a full explanation of his mannerism ; but 
the fact that a man with the desire for chess should 
have grown up without being able to see or engage in a 
game astonished her not a little. She pondered on the 
55 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


circumstance for some time, looking into vacancy and 
hindering the play. 

Mr. Swancourt was sitting with his eyes fixed on the 
board, but apparently thinking of other things. Half to 
himself he said, pending the move of Elfride : 

4 “ Quae finis aut quod me manet stipendium ? ” ’ 

Stephen replied instantly : 

4 “ Effare : jussas cum fide pcenas luam.” ’ 

4 Excellent — prompt — gratifying ! ’ said Mr. Swan- 
court with feeling, bringing down his hand upon the 
table, and making three pawns and a knight dance over 
their borders by the shaking. 4 1 was musing on those 
words as applicable to a strange course I am steering — 
but enough of that. I am delighted with you, Mr. 
Smith, for it is so seldom in this desert that I meet 
with a man who is gentleman and scholar enough to 
continue a quotation, however trite it may be.’ 

4 1 also apply the words to myself,’ said Stephen 
quietly. 

‘You? The last man in the world to do that, I 
should have thought.’ 

4 Come,’ murmured Elfride poutingly, and insinuating 
herself between them, 4 tell me all about it. Come, 
construe, construe ! ’ 

Stephen looked steadfastly into her face, and said 
slowly, and in a voice full of a far-off meaning that 
seemed quaintly premature in one so young : 

4 Quae finis What will be the end , aut or, quod stipen- 
dium what fine, manet me awaits me l Effare Speak 
out ; luam I will pay, cum fide with faith, jussas pcenas 
the penalty required ’’ 

The vicar, who had listened with a critical com- 
pression of the lips to this school-boy recitation, and by 
reason of his imperfect hearing had missed the marked 
realism of Stephen’s tone in the English words, now 
said hesitatingly : 4 By the bye, Mr. Smith (I know you’ll 
excuse my curiosity), though your translation was un- 
56 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


exceptionably correct and close, you have a way of pro- 
nouncing your Latin which to me seems most peculiar. 
Not that the pronunciation of a dead language is of 
much importance ; yet your accents and quantities have 
a grotesque sound to my ears. I thought first that you 
had acquired your way of breathing the vowels from 
some of the northern colleges ; but it cannot be so with 
the quantities. What I was going to ask was, if your 
instructor in the classics could possibly have been an 
Oxford or Cambridge man ? ’ 

‘Yes; he was an Oxford man — Fellow of St. Cyprian’s/ 

‘Really?’ 

‘ Oh yes ; there’s no doubt about it. 

‘ The oddest thing ever I heard of ! ’ said Mr. Swan- 
court, starting with astonishment. ‘ That the pupil of 
such a man ’ 

‘ The best and cleverest man in England ! ’ cried 
Stephen enthusiastically. 

‘ That the pupil of such a man should pro- 
nounce Latin in the way you pronounce it beats all I 
ever heard. How long did he instruct you ? ’ 

‘ Four years.’ 

‘ Four years ! ’ 

‘ It is not so strange when I explain,’ Stephen 
hastened to say. ‘ It was done in this way — by letter. 
I sent him exercises and construing twice a week, and 
twice a week he sent them back to me corrected, with 
marginal notes of instruction. That is how I learnt my 
Latin and Greek, such as it is. He is not responsible 
for my scanning. He has never heard me scan a line.’ 

* A novel case, and a singular instance of patience 1 ’ 
cried the vicar. 

‘ On his part, not on mine. Ah, Henry Knight is 
one in a thousand ! I remember his speaking to me 
on this very subject of pronunciation. He says that, 
much to his regret, he sees a time coming when every 
man will pronounce even the common words of his 
* 57 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


own tongue as seems right in his own ears, and be 
thought none the worse for it; that the speaking age 
is passing away, to make room for the writing age.’ 

Both Elfride and her father had waited attentively 
to hear Stephen go on to what would have been the 
most interesting part of the story, namely, what cir- 
cumstances could have necessitated such an unusual 
method of education. But no further explanation was 
volunteered ; and they saw, by the young man’s manner 
of concentrating himself upon the chess-board, that he 
was anxious to drop the subject. 

The game proceeded. Elfride played by rote ; 
Stephen by thought. It was the cruellest thing to 
checkmate him after so much labour, she considered. 
What was she dishonest enough to do in her com- 
passion ? To let him checkmate her. A second game 
followed ; and being herself absolutely indifferent as to 
the result (her playing was above the average among 
women, and she knew it), she allowed him to give 
checkmate again. A final game, in which she adopted 
the Muzio gambit as her opening, was terminated by 
Elfride’s victory at the twelfth move. 

Stephen looked up suspiciously. His heart was 
throbbing even more excitedly than was hers, which 
itself had quickened when she seriously set to work 
on this last occasion. Mr. Swancourt had left the 
room. 

‘ You have been trifling with me till now ! 1 he 
exclaimed, his face flushing. ‘You did not play your 
best in the first two games ? ’ 

Elfride’s guilt showed in her face. Stephen became 
the picture of vexation and sadness, which, relishable 
for a moment, caused her the next instant to regret the 
mistake she had made. 

‘ Mr. Smith, forgive me ! ’ she said sweetly. ‘ I see 
now, though I did not at first, that what I have done 
seems like contempt for your skill. But, indeed, I 
58 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 

did not mean it in that sense. I could not, upon 
my conscience, win a victory in those first and second 
games over one who fought at such a disadvantage 
and so manfully.’ 

He drew a long breath, and murmured bitterly, 
‘ Ah, you are cleverer than I. You can do everything 
• — I can do nothing ! O Miss Swancourt ! ’ he burst 
out wildly, his heart swelling in his throat, ‘ I must 
tell you how I love you ! All these months of my 
absence I have worshipped you.’ 

He leapt from his seat like the impulsive lad that 
he was, slid round to her side, and almost before she 
suspected it his arm w T as round her waist, and the 
tw r o sets of curls intermingled. 

So entirely new was full-blown love to Elfride, that 
she trembled as much from the novelty of the emotion 
as from the emotion itself. Then she suddenly with- 
drew herself and stood upright, vexed that she had 
submitted unresistingly even to his momentary pres- 
sure. She resolved to consider this demonstration as 
premature. 

‘You must not begin such things as those,’ she 
said with coquettish hauteur of a very transparent 
nature. ‘ And — you must not do so again — and papa 
is coming.’ 

‘ Let me kiss you — only a little one,’ he said with 
his usual delicacy, and without reading the factitious 
ness of her manner. 

‘ No ; not one.’ 

‘ Only on your cheek ? ’ 

‘No.’ 

‘ Forehead ? ’ 

‘ Certainly not.’ 

‘ You care for somebody else, then ? Ah, I thought 
so!’ 

‘ I am sure 1 do not.’ 

‘ Nor for me either ? ’ 


59 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


‘ How can I tell ? ’ she said simply, the simplicity 
lying merely in the broad outlines of her manner and 
speech. There were the semitone of voice and half- 
hidden expression of eyes which tell the initiated how 
very fragile is the ice of reserve at these times. 

Footsteps were heard. Mr. Swancourt then entered 
the room, and their private colloquy ended. 

The day after this partial revelation, Mr. Swancourt 
proposed a drive to the cliffs beyond Targan Bay, a 
distance of three or four miles. 

Half an hour before the time of departure a crash 
was heard in the back yard, and presently Worm came 
in, saying partly to the world in general, partly to him- 
self, and slightly to his auditors : 

‘ Ay, ay, sure ! That frying of fish will be the end 
of William Worm. They be at it again this morning — 
same as ever — fizz, fizz, fizz ! ’ 

‘ Your head bad again, Worm ? * said Mr. Swancourt. 
‘ What was that noise we heard in the yard ? * 

* Ay, sir, a weak wambling man am I ; and the frying 
have been going on in my poor head all through the 
long night and this morning as usual; and I was so 
dazed wi’ it that down fell a piece of leg-wood across 
the shaft of the pony-shay, and splintered it off. “ Ay,” 
says I, “I feel it as if ’twas my own shay ; and though 
I’ve done it, and parish pay is my lot if I go from 
here, perhaps I am as independent as one here and 
there.” ’ 

‘ Dear me, the shaft of the carriage broken ! , cried 
Elfride. She was disappointed : Stephen doubly so. 
The vicar showed more warmth of temper than the 
accident seemed to demand, much to Stephen’s uneasi- 
ness and rather to his surprise. He had not supposed 
so much latent sternness could co-exist with Mr. Swan- 
court’s frankness and good-nature. 

‘ You shall not be disappointed,’ said the vicar at 
length. ‘ It is almost too long a distance for you to 
60 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 

walk. Elfride can trot down on her pony, and you 
shall have my old nag, Smith.* 

Elfride exclaimed triumphantly, ‘You have never 
seen me on horseback — Oh, you must ! * She looked 
at Stephen and read his thoughts immediately. ‘ Ah, 
you don’t ride, Mr. Smith ? ’ 

‘ I am sorry to say I don’t.’ 

‘ Fancy a man not able to ride ! ’ said she rather 
pertly. 

The vicar came to his rescue. ‘That’s common 
enough; he has had other lessons to learn. Now, I 
recommend this plan : let Elfride ride on horseback, 
and you, Mr. Smith, walk beside her.’ 

The arrangement was welcomed with secret delight 
by Stephen. It seemed to combine in itself all the 
advantages of a long slow ramble with Elfride, without 
the contingent possibility of the enjoyment being spoilt 
by her becoming weary. The pony was saddled and 
brought round. 

‘ Now, Mr. Smith,’ said the lady imperatively, coming 
downstairs, and appearing in her riding-habit, as she 
always did in a change of dress, like a new edition of 
a delightful volume, * you have a task to perform to-day. 
These earrings are my very favourite darling ones ; but 
the worst of it is that they have such short hooks 
that they are liable to be dropped if I toss my head 
about much, and when I am riding I can’t give my 
mind to them. It would be doing me knight service 
zf you keep your eyes fixed upon them, and remember 
them every minute of the day, and tell me directly I 
drop one. They have had such hairbreadth escapes, 
haven’t they, Unity ? ’ she continued to the parlour-maid 
who was standing at the door. 

‘ Yes, miss, that they have ! ’ said Unity with round- 
eyed commiseration. 

‘ Once ’twas in the lane that I found one of them,’ 
pursued Elfride reflectively. 

61 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


* And then ’twas by the gate into Eighteen Acres/ 
Unity chimed in. 

« And then ’twas on the carpet in my own room/ 
rejoined Elfride merrily. 

* And then ’twas dangling on the embroidery of youl 
petticoat, miss ; and then ’twas down your back, miss, 
wasn’t it ? And oh, what a way you was in, miss, wasn’*; 
you ? my ! until you found it ! ’ 

Stephen took Elfride’s slight foot upon his hand 
* One, two, three, and up ! ’ she said. 

Unfortunately not so. He staggered and lifted, and 
the horse edged round; and Elfride was ultimately 
deposited upon the ground rather more forcibly than 
was pleasant. Smith looked all contrition. 

‘ Never mind/ said the vicar encouragingly; ‘try 
again ! ’Tis a little accomplishment that requires some 
practice, although it looks so easy. Stand closer to the 
horse’s head, Mr. Smith.’ 

‘ Indeed, I shan’t let him try again/ said she with a 
jnicroscopic look of indignation. ‘ Worm, come here, 
and help me to mount.’ Worm stepped forward, and 
she was in the saddle in a trice. 

Then they moved on, going for some distance in 
silence, the hot air of the valley being occasionally 
brushed from their faces by a cool breeze, which wound 
its way along ravines leading up from the sea. 

‘ I suppose/ said Stephen, ‘ that a man who can 
neither sit in a saddle himself nor help another person 
into one seems a useless incumbrance ; but, Miss 
Swancourt, I’ll learn to do it all for your sake; I 
will, indeed.’ 

‘ What is so unusual in you/ she said, in a didac- 
tic tone justifiable in a horsewoman’s address to a be- 
nighted walker, ‘ is that your knowledge of certain things 
should be combined with your ignorance of certain 
other things.’ 

Stephen lifted his eyes earnestly to hers. 

62 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


* You know,’ he said, * it is simply because there 
are so many other things to be learnt in this wide world 
that I didn’t trouble about that particular bit of know- 
ledge. I thought it would be useless to me; but I 
don’t think so now. I will learn riding, and all con- 
nected with it, because then you would like me better. 
Do you like me much less for this ? ’ 

She looked sideways at him with critical meditation 
tenderly rendered. 

‘ Do I seem like La Belle Dame sans merci ? ’ she 
began suddenly, without replying to his question. 
‘ Fancy yourself saying, Mr. Smith : 

“ I sat her on my pacing steed, 

And nothing else saw all day long, 

For sidelong would she bend, and sing 
A fairy’s song, 

She found me roots of relish sweet, 

And honey wild, and manna dew ; ” 

and that’s all she did.’ 

‘ No, no,’ said the young man stilly, and with a 
rising colour. 

‘ “ And sure in language strange she said, 

I love thee true.” ’ 

‘Not at all,’ she rejoined quickly. * See how I can 
gallop. Now, Pansy, off!’ And Elfride started; and 
Stephen beheld her light figure contracting to the 
dimensions of a bird as she sank into the distance — her 
hair flowing. 

He walked on in the same direction, and for a con- 
siderable time could see no signs of her returning. 
Dull as a flower without the sun he sat down upon a 
stone, and not for fifteen minutes was any sound of 
horse or rider to be heard. Then Elfride and Pansy 
appeared on the hill in a round trot. 

‘ Such a delightful scamper as we have had ! ’ she 

63 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


said, her face flushed and her eyes sparkling. She 
turned the horse’s head, Stephen arose, and they went 
on again. 

‘ Well, what have you to say to me, Mr. Smith, after 
my long absence ? ’ 

‘ Do you remember a question you could not exactly 
answer last night — whether I was more to you than 
anybody else ? ’ said he. 

‘ I cannot exactly answer now, either.’ 

‘ Why can’t you ? ’ 

‘ Because I don’t know if I am more to you than 
any one else.’ 

* Yes, indeed, you are ! ’ he exclaimed in a voice of 
intensest appreciation, at the same time gliding round 
and looking into her face. 

* Eyes in eyes,’ he murmured playfully ; and she 
blushingly obeyed, looking back into his. 

‘ And why not lips on lips ? ’ continued Stephen 
daringly. 

‘ No, certainly not. Anybody might look ; and it 
would be the death of me. You may kiss my hand if 
you like.’ 

He expressed by a look that to kiss a hand through 
a glove, and that a riding-glove, was not a great treat 
under the circumstances. 

. ‘ There, then ; I’ll take my glove off. Isn’t it a 
pretty white hand ? Ah, you don’t want to kiss it, and 
you shall not now ! ’ 

* If I do not, may I never kiss again, you severe 
Elfride ! You know I think more of you than I can 
tell; that you are my queen. I would die for you, 
Elfride ! ’ 

A rapid red again filled her cheeks, and she looked 
at him meditatively. What a proud moment it was for 
Elfride then ! She was ruling a heart with absolute 
despotism for the first time in her life. 

Stephen stealthily pounced upon her hand. 

64 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 

‘ No ; I won’t, I won’t ! ’ she said intractably; ‘and 
you shouldn’t take me by surprise.’ 

There ensued a mild form of tussle for absolute 
possession of the much-coveted hand, in which the 
boisterousness of boy and girl was far more prominent 
than the dignity of man and woman. Then Pansy 
became restless. Elfride recovered her position and 
remembered herself. 

‘You make me behave in not a nice way at all!’ 
she exclaimed, in a tone neither of pleasure nor anger, 
but partaking of both. ‘ I ought not to have allowed 
such a romp ! We are too old now for that sort of 
thing.’ 

‘ I hope you don’t think me too — too much of a 
creeping-round sort of man,’ said he in a penitent tone, 
conscious that he too had lost a little dignity by the 
proceeding. 

‘You are too familiar; and I can’t have it! Con- 
sidering the shortness of the time we have known each 
other, Mr. Smith, you take too much upon you. You 
think I am a country girl, and it doesn’t matter how 
you behave to me ! ’ 

‘ I assure you, Miss Swancourt, that I had no idea 
of freak in my mind. I wanted to imprint a sweet 
serious kiss upon your hand ; and that’s all.’ 

‘Now, that’s creeping round again! And you 
mustn’t look into my eyes so,’ she said, shaking her 
head at him, and trotting on a few paces in advance. 
Thus she led the way out of the lane and across some 
fields in the direction of the cliffs. At the boundary 
of the fields nearest the sea she expressed a wish to 
dismount. The horse was tied to a post, and they both 
followed an irregular path, which ultimately terminated 
upon a flat ledge passing round the face of the huge 
blue-black rock at a height about midway between the 
sea and the topmost verge. There, far beneath and 
before them, lay the everlasting stretch of ocean ; there, 
65 E 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


upon detached rocks, were the white screaming gulls, 
seeming ever intending to settle, and yet always passing 
on. Right and left ranked the toothed and zigzag line 
of storm-torn heights, forming the series which culmi- 
nated in the one beneath their feet. 

Behind the youth and maiden was a tempting alcove 
and seat, formed naturally in the beetling mass, and 
Wide enough to admit two or three persons. Elfride 
tat down, and Stephen sat beside her. 

‘ 1 am afraid it is hardly proper of us to be here, 
either,’ she said half inquiringly. ‘We have not 
known each other long enough for this kind of thing, 
have we ! ’ 

‘ Oh yes,’ he replied judicially ; ‘ quite long enough.’ 

‘ How do you know ? ’ 

‘ It is not length of time, but the manner in which 
our minutes beat, that makes enough or not enough in 
our acquaintanceship.’ 

‘Yes, I see that. But I wish papa suspected or 
knew what a very new thing I am doing. He does 
not think of it at all.’ 

‘ Darling Elfie, I wish we could be married ! It is 
wrong for me to say it — I know it is — before you know 
more ; but I wish we might be, all the same. Do you 
love me deeply, deeply ? ’ 

‘ No ! ’ she said in a fluster. 

At this point-blank denial, Stephen turned his face 
away decisively, and preserved an ominous silence; 
the only objects of interest on earth for him being 
apparently the three or four-score sea-birds circling in 
the air afar off. 

‘ I didn’t mean to stop you quite,’ she faltered witf 
some alarm ; and seeing that he still remained silent^ 
she added more anxiously, ‘ If you say that agaii\ 
perhaps, I will not be quite— quite so obstinate — if-^ 
if you don’t like me to be.’ 

* Oh, my Elfride ! ’ he exclaimed, and kissed her. 

66 


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It was Elfride’s first kiss. And so awkward and 
unused was she ; full of striving — no relenting. There 
was none of those apparent struggles to get out of the 
trap which only results in getting further in : no final 
attitude of receptivity : no easy close of shoulder to 
shoulder, hand upon hand, face upon face, and, in spite 
of coyness, the lips in the right place at the supreme 
moment. That graceful though apparently accidental 
falling into position, which many have noticed as pre- 
cipitating the end and making sweethearts the sweeter, 
was not here. Why ? Because experience was absent. 
A woman must have had many kisses before she 
kisses well. 

In fact, the art of tendering the lips for these amatory 
salutes follows the principles laid down in treatises on 
legerdemain for performing the trick called Forcing a 
Card. The card is to be shifted nimbly, withdrawn, 
edged under, and withal not to be offered till the 
moment the unsuspecting person’s hand reaches the 
pack ; this forcing to be done so modestly and yet so 
coaxingly, that the person trifled with imagines he is 
really choosing what is in fact thrust into his hand. 

Well, there were no such facilities now ; and Stephen 
was conscious of it — first with a momentary regret that 
his kiss should be spoilt by her confused receipt of it, 
and then with the pleasant perception that her awkward- 
ness was her charm. 

‘ And you do care for me and love me ? ’ said he. 

‘Yes.’ 

‘ Very much ? ’ 

‘Yes.’ 

‘ And I mustn’t ask you if you’ll wait for me, and be 
my wife some day ? ’ 

‘ Why not ? ’ she said naively. 

* There is a reason why, my Elfride.’ 

* Not any one that I know of.’ 

« Suppose there is something connected with me which 

67 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


makes it almost impossible for you to agree to be my 
wife, or for your father to countenance such an idea ? ’ 

‘ Nothing shall make me cease to love you : no 
blemish can be found upon your personal nature. That 
is pure and generous, I know; and having that, how 
can I be cold to you ? * 

‘ And shall nothing else affect us — shall nothing 
beyond my nature be a part of my quality in your eyes, 
Elfie ? ’ 

1 Nothing whatever,’ she said with a breath of relief. 
‘ Is that all ? Some outside circumstance ? What do 
I care?’ 

‘ You can hardly judge, dear, till you know what has 
to be judged. For that, we will stop till we get home. 
I believe in you, but I cannot feel bright.’ 

‘ Love is new, and fresh to us as the dew ; and we 
are together. As the lover’s world goes, this is a great 
deal. Stephen, I fancy I see the difference between me 
and you — between men and women generally, perhaps. 
I am content to build happiness on any accidental basis 
that may lie near at hand ; you are for making a world 
to suit your happiness.’ 

‘ Elfride, you sometimes say things which make you 
seem suddenly to become five years older than you are, 
or than I am; and that remark is one. I couldn’t 
think so old as that, try how I might. . . . And no 
lover has ever kissed you before ? ’ 

* Never.’ 

‘ I knew that ; you were so unused. You ride well, 
but you don’t kiss nicely at all ; and I was told once, 
by my friend Knight, that that is an excellent fault in 
woman.’ 

‘ Now, come; I must mount again, or we shall not 
be home by dinner-time.’ And they returned to where 
Pansy stood tethered. ‘ Instead of entrusting my weight 
to a young man’s unstable palm,’ she continued gaily, 
‘ I prefer a surer “ upping-stock ” (as the villagers call 
68 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 

it), in the form of a gate. There — now I am myself 
again/ 

They proceeded homeward at the same walking pace. 

Her blitheness won Stephen out of his thoughtful- 
ness, and each forgot everything but the tone of the 
moment. 

‘ What did you love me for ? ’ she said, after a long 
musing look at a flying bird. 

‘ I don’t know,’ he replied idly. 

‘ Oh yes, you do,’ insisted Elfride. 

* Perhaps, for your eyes. 

‘ What of them ? — now, don’t vex me by a light 
answer. What of my eyes ? ’ 

‘ Oh, nothing to be mentioned. They are indiffer- 
ently good.’ 

‘ Come, Stephen, I won’t have that. WTiat did you 
love me for ? ’ 

‘ It might have been for your mouth ? ’ 

‘ Well, what about my mouth ? ’ 

‘ I thought it was a passable mouth enough ' 

‘ That’s not very comforting/ 

‘ With a pretty pout and sweet lips ; but actually, 
nothing more than what everybody has.’ 

‘ Don’t make up things out of your head as you 
go on, there’s a dear Stephen. Now — what — did — 
you — love — me — for ? ’ 

‘ Perhaps, ’twas for your neck and hair ; though I 
am not sure : or for your idle blood, that did nothing 
but wander away from your cheeks and back again ; 
but I am not sure. Or your hands and arms, that 
they eclipsed all other hands and arms ; or your feet, 
that they played about under your dress like little 
mice; or your tongue, that it was of a dear delicate 
tone. But I am not altogether sure.’ 

‘ Ah, that’s pretty to say ; but I don’t care for your 
love, if it made a mere flat picture of me in that way, 
and not being sure, and such cold reasoning; but 
69 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


what you felt I was, you know, Stephen’ (at this a 
stealthy laugh and frisky look into his face), ‘when 
you said to yourself, “ I’ll certainly love that young 
lady.” ’ 

‘ I never said it.’ 

‘ When you said to yourself, then, “ I never will 
love that young lady.” ’ 

‘ I didn’t say that, either.’ 

‘ Then was it, “ I suppose I must love that young 
lady?”’ 

‘No.’ 

‘ What, then ? ’ 

‘ ’Twas much more fluctuating — not so definite.’ 

‘ Tell me ; do, do.’ 

‘ It was that I ought not to think about you if I 
loved you truly.’ 

‘ Ah, that I don’t understand. There’s no getting 
it out of you. And I’ll not ask you ever any more — 
never more— to say out of the deep reality of your 
heart what you loved me for.’ 

‘ Sweet tantalizer, what’s the use ? It comes to 
this sole simple thing : That at one time I had never 
seen you, and I didn’t love you ; that then I saw you, 
and I did love you. Is that enough ? ’ 

‘Yes; I will make it do. ... I know, I think, 
what I love you for. You are nice-looking, of course ; 
but I didn’t mean for that. It is because you are so 
docile and gentle.’ 

‘ Those are not quite the correct qualities for a man 
to be loved for,’ said Stephen, in rather a dissatisfied 
tone of self-criticism. ‘ Well, never mind. I must ask 
your father to allow us to be engaged directly we get 
indoors. It will be for a long time.’ 

‘ I like it the better. . . . Stephen, don’t mention 
it till to-morrow.’ 

‘Why?’ 

‘ Because, if he should object — I don’t think he 
70 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


will ; but if he should — we shall have a day longer of 
happiness from our ignorance. . . . Well, what are 
you thinking of so deeply ? ’ 

‘ I was thinking how my dear friend Knight would 
enjoy this scene. I wish he could come here.’ 

‘You seem very much engrossed with him/ she 
answered, with a jealous little toss. ‘ He must be an 
interesting man to take up so much of your attention/ 

‘ Interesting ! 5 said Stephen, his face glowing with 
his fervour ; ‘ noble, you ought to say.’ 

‘ Oh yes, yes ; I forgot/ she said half satirically. 
‘ The noblest man in England, as you told us last 
night/ 

‘ He is a fine fellow, laugh as you will, Miss Elfie/ 

‘ I know he is your hero. But what does he do ? 
anything ? * 

‘ He writes/ 

* What does he write ? I have never heard of his 
name/ 

‘ Because his personality, and that of several others 
like him, is absorbed into a huge WE, namely, the 
impalpable entity called the Present — a social and 
literary Review/ 

‘ Is he only a reviewer ? ’ 

* Only , Elfie ! Why, I can tell you it is a fine thing 
to be on the staff of the Present, Finer than being a 
novelist considerably/ 

‘ That’s a hit at me, and my poor Court of Kellyon 
Castle / 

‘ No, Elfride/ he whispered ; ‘ I didn’t mean that. 
I mean that he is really a literary man of some eminence, 
and not altogether a reviewer. He writes things of a 
higher class than reviews, though he reviews a book 
occasionally. His ordinary productions are social and 
ethical essays — all that the Present contains which is 
not literary reviewing/ 

‘ I admit he must be talented if he writes for the 
71 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


Present . We have it sent to us irregularly. I want 
papa to be a subscriber, but he’s so conservative. Now 
the next point in this Mr. Knight — I suppose he is a 
very good man.’ 

‘ An excellent man. I shall try to be his intimate 
friend some day.’ 

‘ But aren’t you now ? ’ 

‘No; not so much as that,’ replied Stephen, as if 
such a supposition were extravagant. ‘You see, it was 
in this way — he came originally from the same place as 
I, and taught me things; but I am not intimate with 
him. Shan’t I be glad when I get richer and better 
known, and hob and nob with him ! ’ Stephen’s eyes 
sparkled. 

A pout began to shape itself upon Elfride’s soft lips. 
‘ You think always of him, and like him better than you 
do me ! ’ 

‘No, indeed, Elfride. The feeling is different quite. 
But I do like him, and he deserves even more affection 
from me than I give.’ 

‘ You are not nice now, and you make me as jealous 
as possible ! ’ she exclaimed perversely. ‘ I know you 
will never speak to any third person of me so warmly as 
you do to me of him.’ 

‘ But you don’t understand, Elfride,’ he said with an 
anxious movement. ‘You shall know him some day. 
He is so brilliant — no, it isn’t exactly brilliant; so 
thoughtful — nor does thoughtful express him — that it 
would charm you to talk to him. He’s a most desirable 
friend, and that isn’t half I could say.’ 

‘ I don’t care how good he is ; I don’t want to know 
him, because he comes between me and you. You think 
of him night and day, ever so much more than of any- 
body else; and when you are thinking of him, I am 
shut out of your mind.’ 

‘ No, dear Elfride; I love you dearly.’ 

‘ And I don’t like you to tell me so warmly about 
72 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


him when you are in the middle of loving me. Stephen, 
suppose that I and this man Knight of yours were both 
drowning, and you could only save one of us ’ 

* Yes — the stupid old proposition — which would I 
save ? ’ 

‘ Well, which ? Not me.’ 

‘ Both of you/ he said, pressing her pendent hand. 

1 No, that won’t do ; only one of us.’ 

‘ I cannot say ; I don’t know. It is disagreeable — 
quite a horrid idea to have to handle.’ 

‘ A-ha, I know. You would save him, and let me 
drown, drown, drown ; and I don’t care about your love ! ’ 

She had endeavoured to give a playful tone to her 
words, but the latter speech was rather forced in its 
gaiety. 

At this point in the discussion she trotted off to turn 
a corner which was avoided by the footpath, the road and 
the path reuniting at a point a little further on. On 
again making her appearance she continually managed 
to look in a direction away from him, and left him in 
the cool shade of her displeasure. Stephen was soon 
beaten at this game of indifference. He went round and 
entered the range of her vision. 

‘ Are you offended, Elfie ? Why don’t you talk ? ’ 

1 Save me, then, and let that Mr. Clever of yours 
drown. I hate him. Now, which would you ? ’ 

‘ Really, Elfride, you should not press such a hard 
question. It is ridiculous/ 

‘ Then I won’t be alone with you any more. Unkind, 
to wound me so ! ’ She laughed at her own absurdity, 
but persisted. 

‘ Come, Elfie, let’s make it up and be friends/ 

* Say you would save me, then, and let him drown/ 

* I would save you — and him too.’ 

« And let him drown. Come, or you don’t love me ! ’ 
she teasingly went on. 

‘ And let him drown/ he ejaculated despairingly. 

» 73 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


‘ There ; now I am yours ! ’ she said, and a woman's 
flush of triumph lit her eyes. 

‘ Only one earring, miss, as I’m alive/ said Unity on 
their entering the hall. 

With a face expressive of wretched misgiving, Elfride's 
hand flew like an arrow to her ear. 

‘ There ! * she exclaimed to Stephen, looking at him 
with eyes full of reproach. 

‘ I quite forgot, indeed. If I had only remembered ! ’ 
he answered, with a conscience-stricken face. 

She wheeled herself round, and turned into the 
shrubbery. Stephen followed. 

‘ If you had told me to watch anything, Stephen, I 
should have religiously done it/ she capriciously went 
on, as soon as she heard him behind her. 

‘ Forgetting is forgivable/ 

* Well, you will find it, if you want me to respect 
you and be engaged to you when we have asked papa/ 
She considered a moment, and added more seriously, 
‘ I know now where I dropped it, Stephen. It was on 
the cliff. I remember a faint sensation of some change 
about me, but I was too absent to think of it then. 
And that's where it is now, and you must go and look 
there/ 

‘ I’ll go at once.’ 

And he strode away up the valley, under a broiling 
sun and amid the deathlike silence of early afternoon. 
He ascended, with giddy-paced haste, the windy range 
of rocks to where they had sat, felt and peered about 
the stones and crannies, but Elfride’s stray jewel was 
nowhere to be seen. Next Stephen slowly retraced his 
steps, and, pausing at a cross-road to reflect a while, he 
left the plateau and struck downwards across some 
fields, in the direction of Endelstow House. 

He walked along the path by the river without the 
slightest hesitation as to its bearing, apparently quite 
74 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


familiar with every inch of the ground. As the shadows 
began to lengthen and the sunlight to mellow, he passed 
through two wicket-gates, and drew near the outskirts 
of Endelstow Park. The river now ran along under 
the park fence, previous to entering the grove itself, a 
little further on. 

Here stood a cottage, between the fence and the 
stream, on a slightly elevated spot of ground, round 
which the river took a turn. The characteristic feature 
of this snug habitation was its one chimney in the gable 
end, its squareness of form disguised by a huge cloak 
of ivy, which had grown so luxuriantly and extended so 
far from its base, as to increase the apparent bulk of 
the chimney to the dimensions of a tower. Some little 
distance from the back of the house rose the park 
boundary, and over this were to be seen the sycamores 
of the grove, making slow inclinations to the just- 
awakening air. 

Stephen crossed the little wood bridge in front, went 
up to the cottage door, and opened it without knock or 
signal of any kind. 

Exclamations of welcome burst from some person 
or persons when the door was thrust ajar, followed 
by the scrape of chairs on a stone floor, as if pushed 
back by their occupiers in rising from a table. The 
door was closed again, and nothing could now be 
heard from within, save a lively chatter and the rattle 
of plates. 


VIII 

* Allen-a-Dale is no baron or lord.’ 

The mists were creeping out of pools and swamps 
for their pilgrimages of the night when Stephen came 
up to the front door of the vicarage. Elfride was stand- 
ing on the step illuminated by a lemon-hued expanse 
of western sky. 

‘ You never have been all this time looking for that 
earring ? ’ she said anxiously. 

* Oh no ; and I have not found it.’ 

* Never mind. Though I am much vexed ; they 
are my prettiest. But, Stephen, what ever have you 
been doing — where have you been? I have been so 
uneasy. I feared for you, knowing not an inch of 
the country. I thought, suppose he has fallen over 
the cliff! But now I am inclined to scold you for 
frightening me so/ 

‘ I must speak to your father now,’ he said rather 
abruptly ; ‘ I have so much to say to him — and to you, 
Elfride/ 

‘ Will what you have to say endanger this nice time 
of ours, and is it that same shadowy secret you allude 
to so frequently, and will it make me unhappy ? ’ 

‘ Possibly/ 


76 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


She breathed heavily, and looked' around as if for a 
prompter. 

‘ Put it off till to-morrow/ she said. 

He involuntarily sighed too. 

‘ No ; it must come to-night. Where is your father, 
Elfride ? ’ 

* Somewhere in the kitchen garden, I think/ she 
replied. ‘ That is his favourite evening retreat. I will 
leave you now. Say all that’s to be said — do all there 
is to be done. Think of me waiting anxiously for the 
end.’ And she re-entered the house. 

She waited in the drawing-room, watching the lights 
sink to shadows, the shadows sink to darkness, until 
her impatience to know what had occurred in the garden 
could no longer be controlled. She passed round the 
shrubbery, unlatched the garden door, and skimmed 
with her keen eyes the whole twilighted space that the 
four walls enclosed and sheltered : they were not there. 
She mounted a little ladder, which had been used for 
gathering fruit, and looked over the wall into the field. 
This field extended to the limits of the glebe, which 
was enclosed on that side by a privet-hedge. Under 
the hedge was Mr. Swancourt, walking up and down, 
and talking aloud — to himself, as it sounded at first. 
No : another voice shouted occasional replies ; and 
this interlocutor seemed to be on the other side of 
the hedge. The voice, though soft in quality, was not 
Stephen’s. 

The second speaker must have been in the long- 
neglected garden of an old manor-house hard by, which, 
together with a small estate attached, had lately been 
purchased by a person named Troy ton, whom Elfride 
had never seen. Her father might have struck up an 
acquaintanceship with some member of that family 
through the privet-hedge, or a stranger to the neighbour- 
hood might have wandered thither. 

Well, there was no necessity for disturbing him. 

77 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


And it seemed that, after all, Stephen had not yet 
made his desired communication to her father. Again 
she went indoors, wondering where Stephen could be. 
For want of something better to do, she went upstairs 
to her own little room. Here she sat down at the open 
window, and, leaning with her elbow on the table and 
her cheek upon her hand, she fell into meditation. 

It was a hot and still August night. Every disturb- 
ance of the silence which rose to the dignity of a noise 
could be heard for miles, and the merest sound for a 
long distance. So she remained, thinking of Stephen, 
and wishing he had not deprived her of his company 
to no purpose, as it appeared. How delicate and 
sensitive he was, she reflected; and yet he was man 
enough to have a private mystery, which considerably 
elevated him in her eyes. Thus, looking at things with 
an inward vision, she lost consciousness of the flight 
of time. 

Strange conjunctions of circumstances, particularly 
those of a trivial everyday kind, are so frequent in an 
ordinary life, that we grow used to their unaccountable- 
ness, and forget the question whether the very long 
odds against such juxtaposition is not almost a disproof 
of it being a matter of chance at all. What occurred 
to Elfride at this moment was a case in point. She 
was vividly imagining, for the twentieth time, the kiss 
of the morning, and putting her lips together in the 
position another such a one would demand, when she 
heard the identical operation performed on the lawn, 
immediately beneath her window. 

A kiss — not of the quiet and stealthy kind, but 
decisive, loud, and smart. 

Her face flushed and she looked out, but to no 
purpose. The dark rim of the upland drew a keen 
sad line against the pale glow of the sky, unbroken 
except where a young cedar on the lawn, that had 
outgrown its fellow trees, shot its pointed head across 
78 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


the horizon, piercing the firmamental lustre like a 
sting. 

It was just possible that, had any persons been 
standing on the grassy portions of the lawn, Elfride 
might have seen their dusky forms. But the shrubs, 
which once had merely dotted the glade, had now 
grown bushy and large, till they hid at least half the 
enclosure containing them. The kissing pair might 
have been behind some of these ; at any rate, nobody 
was in sight. 

Had no enigma ever been connected with her lover 
by his hints and absences, Elfride would never have 
thought of admitting into her mind a suspicion that he 
might be concerned in the foregoing enactment. But 
the reservations he at present insisted on, while they 
added to the mystery without which perhaps she would 
never have seriously loved him' at all, were calculated 
to nourish doubts of all kinds, and with a slow flush 
of jealousy she asked herself, might he not be the 
culprit ? 

Elfride glided downstairs on tiptoe, and out to th* 
precise spot on which she had parted from Stephen 
to enable him to speak privately to her father. Thence 
she wandered into all the nooks around the place from 
which the sound seemed to proceed — among the huge 
laurestines, about the tufts of pampas grasses, amid 
the variegated hollies, under the weeping wych-elm — 
nobody was there. Returning indoors she called 
‘ Unity ! ’ 

‘ She is gone to her aunt’s, to spend the evening,’ 
said Mr. Swancourt, thrusting his head out of his study 
door, and letting the light of his candles stream upon 
Elfride’s face — less revealing than, as it seemed to 
herself, creating the blush of uneasy perplexity that was 
burning upon her cheek. 

4 1 didn’t know you were indoors, papa,’ she said 
with surprise. ‘ Surely no light was shining from the 
70 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


window when I was on the lawn ? ’ and she looked and 
saw that the shutters were still open. 

‘ Oh yes, I am in,’ he said indifferently. * What did 
you want Unity for? I think she laid supper before 
she went out/ 

* Did she ? — I have not been to see — I didn’t want 
her for that.’ 

Elfride scarcely knew, now that a definite reason 
was required, what that reason was. Her mind for a 
moment strayed to another subject, unimportant as it 
seemed. The red ember of a match was lying inside 
the fender, which explained that why she had seen no 
rays from the window was because the candles had only 
just been lighted. 

1 I’ll come directly,’ said the vicar. ‘ I thought you 
were out somewhere with Mr. Smith.’ 

Even the inexperienced Elfride could not help think- 
ing that her father must be wonderfully blind if he failed 
to perceive what was the nascent consequence of herself 
and Stephen being so unceremoniously left together; 
wonderfully careless, if he saw it and did not think 
about it ; wonderfully good, if, as seemed to her by far 
the most probable supposition, he saw it and thought 
about it and approved of it. These reflections were 
cut short by the appearance of Stephen just outside 
the porch, silvered about the head and shoulders with 
touches of moonlight, that had begun to creep through 
the trees. 

‘ Has your trouble anything to do with a kiss on the 
lawn ? ’ she asked abruptly, almost passionately. 

* Kiss on the lawn ? ’ 

* Yes ! ’ she said, imperiously now. 

‘ I didn’t comprehend your meaning, nor do I now 
exactly. I certainly have kissed nobody on the lawn, 
if that is really what you want to know, Elfride.’ 

‘ You know nothing about such a performance ? ’ 

* Nothing whatever. What makes you ask ? ’ 

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A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


‘ Don’t press me to tell ; it is nothing of importance. 
And, Stephen, you have not yet spoken to papa about 
our engagement ? ’ 

‘ No,’ he said regretfully, ‘ I could not find him 
directly ; and then I went on thinking so much of 
what you said about objections, refusals — bitter words 
possibly — ending our happiness, that I resolved to put 
it off till to-morrow ; that gives us one more day of 
delight — delight of a tremulous kind.’ 

‘ Yes ; but it would be improper to be silent too 
long, I think,’ she said in a delicate voice, which im- 
plied that her face had grown warm. * I want him to 
know we love, Stephen. Why did you adopt as your 
own my thought of delay ? ’ 

‘ I will explain ; but I want to tell you of my secret 
first — to tell you now. It is two or three hours yet to 
bedtime. Let us walk up the hill to the church.’ 

. Elfride passively assented, and they went from the 
lawn by a side wicket, and ascended into the open 
expanse of moonlight which streamed around the lonely 
edifice on the summit of the hill. 

The door was locked. They turned from the porch, 
and walked hand in hand to find a resting-place in the 
churchyard. Stephen chose a flat tomb, showing itself 
to be newer and whiter than those around it, and sitting 
down himself, gently drew her hand towards him. 

‘ No, not there,’ she said. 

‘ Why not here ? ’ 

‘A mere fancy; but never mind.’ And she sat 
down. 

* Elfie, will you love me, in spite of everything that 
may be said against me ? ’ 

‘ O Stephen, what makes you repeat that so con- 
tinually and so sadly ? You know I will. Yes, indeed,’ 
she said, drawing closer, ‘ whatever may be said of you 
— and nothing bad can be — I will cling to you just the 
same. Your ways shall be my ways until I die.’ 

81 F 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


‘ Did you ever think what my parents might be, or 
what society I originally moved in ? ’ 

‘ No, not particularly. I have observed one or two 
little points in your manners which are rather quaint — 
no more. I suppose you have moved in the ordinary 
society of professional people/ 

‘ Supposing I havq not — that none of my family 
have a profession except me ? * 

‘ I don’t mind. What you are only concerns me/ 

‘ Where do you think I went to school — I mean, to 
what kind of school ? ’ 

‘ Dr. Somebody’s academy,’ she said simply. 

‘No. To a dame school originally, then to a national 
school/ 

‘ Only to those ! Well, I love you just as much, 
Stephen, dear Stephen,’ she murmured tenderly, * I do 
indeed. And why should you tell me these things so 
impressively ? What do they matter to me?’ „ 

He held her closer and proceeded : 

‘ What do you think my father is — does for his living, 
that is to say ? ’ 

‘ He practises some profession or calling, I suppose/ 
‘ No ; he is a mason/ 

* A Freemason ? ’ 

‘ No ; a cottager and journeyman mason/ 

Elfride said nothing at first. After a while she 
whispered : 

‘ That is a strange idea to me. But never mind ; 
what does it matter ? ’ 

* But aren’t you angry with me for not telling you 
before ? ’ 

‘ No, not at all. Is your mother alive ? ’ 

‘Yes/ 

* Is she a nice lady ? ’ 

‘ Very — the best mother in the world. Her people 
had been well-to-do yeomen for centuries, but she was 
only a dairymaid.’ 


82 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 

‘ O Stephen ! ’ came from her in whispered excla- 
mation. 

‘ She continued to attend to a dairy long after my 
father married her/ pursued Stephen, without further 
hesitation. ‘ And I remember very well how, when I 
was very young, I used to go to the milking, look on at 
the skimming, sleep through the churning, and make 
believe I helped her. Ah, that was a happy time 
enough ! ’ 

‘ No, never — not happy.’ 

‘Yes, it was.’ 

‘ I don’t see how happiness could be where the 
drudgery of dairy-work had to be done for a living — 
the hands red and chapped, and the shoes clogged. . . . 
Stephen, I do own that it seems odd to regard you in 
the light of — of— having been so rough in your youth, 
and done menial things of that kind.’ (Stephen with- 
drew an inch or two from her side.) ‘ But I do love you 
just the same,’ she continued, getting closer under his 
shoulder again, ‘ and I don’t care anything about the 
past ; and I see that you are all the worthier for having 
pushed on in the world in such a way.’ 

‘ It is not my worthiness ; it is Knight’s, who pushed 
me.’ 

‘ Ah, always he — always he ! ’ 

‘ Yes, and properly so. Now, Elfride, you see the 
reason of his teaching me by letter. I knew him years 
before he went to Oxford, but I had not got far enough 
in my reading for him to entertain the idea of helping 
me in classics till he left home. Then I was sent away 
from the village, and we very seldom met ; but he kept 
up this system of tuition by correspondence with the 
greatest regularity. I will tell you all the story, but not 
now. There is nothing more to say now, beyond giving 
places, persons, and dates.’ His voice became timidly 
slow at this point. 

‘ No ; don’t take trouble to say more. You are 
83 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


a dear honest fellow to say so much as you have; 
and it is not so dreadful either. It has become a 
normal thing that millionaires commence by going up 
to London with their tools at their back, and half-a- 
crown in their pockets. That sort of origin is getting 
so respected/ she continued cheerfully, * that it is 
acquiring some of the odour of Norman ancestry.* 

* Ah, if I had made my fortune, I shouldn’t mind. 
But I am only a possible maker of it as yet.’ 

* It is quite enough. And so this is what your 
trouble was ? ’ 

‘ 1 thought I was doing wrong in letting you love 
me without telling you my story; and yet I feared to 
do so, Elfie. I dreaded to lose you, and I was 
cowardly on that account.’ 

‘ How plain everything about you seems after this 
explanation ! Your peculiarities in chess-playing, the 
pronunciation papa noticed in your Latin, your odd 
mixture of book-knowledge with ignorance of ordinary 
social accomplishments, are accounted for in a moment. 
And has this anything to do with what I saw at Lord 
Luxellian’s ? ’ 

* What did you see ? ’ 

* 1 saw the shadow of yourself putting a cloak round 
a lady. I was at the side door; you two were in a 
room with the window towards me. You came to me 
a moment later.’ 

‘ She was my mother.’ 

‘Your mother there!' She withdrew herself to 
look at him silently in her interest. 

* Elfride,’ said Stephen, ‘ I was going to tell you 
the remainder to-morrow — I have been keeping it back 
— I must tell it now, after all. The remainder of my 
revelation refers to where my parents are. Where do 
you think they live? You know them — by sight at 
any rate.’ 

‘ / know them ! ’ she said in suspended amazement. 
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A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


‘Yes. My father is John Smith, Lord Luxellian’s 
master-mason, who lives under the park wall by the 
river/ 

* O Stephen ! can it be ? * 

* He built — or assisted at the building of the house 
you live in, years ago. He put up those stone gate 
piers at the lodge entrance to Lord Luxellian’s park. 
My grandfather planted the trees that belt in your 
lawn ; my grandmother — who worked in the fields with 
him — held each tree upright whilst he filled in the earth : 
they told me so when I was a child. He was the 
sexton, too, and dug many of the graves around us/ 

* And was your unaccountable vanishing on the first 
morning of your arrival, and again this afternoon, a 
run to see your father and mother ? . . . I understand 
now ; no wonder you seemed to know your way about 
the village ! ’ 

* No wonder. But remember, I have not lived here 
since I was nine years old. I then went to live with 
my uncle, a blacksmith, near Exonbury, in order to 
be able to attend a national school as a day scholar; 
there was none on this remote coast then. It was 
there I met with my friend Knight. And when I 
was fifteen and had been fairly educated by the school' 
master — and more particularly by Knight — I was put 
as a pupil in an architect’s office in that town, because 
I was skilful in the use of the pencil. A full premium 
was paid by the efforts of my mother and father, rather 
against the wishes of Lord Luxellian, who likes my 
father,’ however, and thinks a great deal of him. There 
I stayed till six months ago, when I obtained a situa- 
tion as improver, as it is called, in a London office. 
That’s all of me.’ 

« To think you, the London visitor, the town man, 
should have been born here, and have known this 
village so many years before I did. How strange— 
how very strange it seems to me ! ’ she murmured. 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


* My mother curtseyed to you and your father last 
Sunday,’ said Stephen, with a pained smile at the 
thought of the incongruity. ‘ And your papa said to 
her, “ I am glad to see you so regular at church, 
/ ane 

‘ I remember it, but I have never spoken to her. 
We have only been here eighteen months, and the 
parish is so large.’ 

‘ Contrast with this,’ said Stephen, with a miserable 
laugh, * your father’s belief in my “ blue blood,” which 
is still prevalent in his mind. The first night I came, 
he insisted upon proving my descent from one of the 
most ancient west-county families, on account of my 
§econd Christian name ; when the truth is, it was given 
me because my grandfather was assistant gardener in the 
Fitzmaurice-Smith family for thirty years. Having seen 
your face, my darling, I had not heart to contradict him, 
and tell him what would have cut me off from a friendly 
knowledge of you.’ 

She sighed deeply. ‘Yes, I see now how this in- 
equality may be made to trouble us,’ she murmured, 
and continued in a low, sad whisper, ‘ I wouldn’t have 
minded if they had lived far away. Papa might have 
consented to an engagement between us if your con- 
nection had been with villagers a hundred miles off; 
remoteness softens family contrasts. But he will not 
like — O Stephen, Stephen ! what can I do ? ’ 

‘ Do ? ’ he said tentatively, yet with heaviness. ‘ Give 
me up ; let me go back to Lond on, and think no more 
of me.’ 

‘ No, no; I cannot give you up ! This hop elessness 
in our affairs makes me care more for you. ... I see 
what did not strike me at first. Stephen, why do we 
trouble? Why should papa object? An architect in 
London is an architect in London. WTo inquires 
there ? Nobody. We shall live there, shall we not ? 
Why need we be so alarmed ? ’ 

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A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


‘ And Elfie/ said Stephen, his hopes kindling with 
hers, ‘ Knight thinks nothing of my being only a cottager’s 
son ; he says I am as worthy of his friendship as if I 
were a lord’s ; and if I am worthy of his friendship, I 
am worthy of you, am I not, Elfride ? ’ 

‘ I not only have never loved anybody but you,’ she 
said, instead of giving an answer, ‘ but I have not even 
formed a strong friendship, such as you have for Knight. 
I wish you hadn’t. It diminishes me.’ 

‘ Now, Elfride, you know better,’ he said wooingly. 
‘ And had you really never any sweetheart at all ? ’ 

* None that was ever recognized by me as such.’ 

‘ But did nobody ever love you ? ’ 

‘Yes— a man did once; very much, he said.’ 

* How long ago ? ’ 

* Oh, a long time.’ 

* How long, dearest ? 

‘ A twelvemonth.’ 

‘ That’s not very long ’ (rather disappointedly). 

‘ I said long, not very long.’ 

* And did he want to marry you ? ’ 

‘ I believe he did. But I didn’t see anything in him. 
He was not good enough, even if I had loved him.’ 

‘ May I ask what he was ? ’ 

‘ A farmer.’ 

‘ A farmer not good enough — how much better than 
my family ! ’ Stephen murmured. 

‘ Where is he now ? ’ he continued to Elfride. 

‘ Here: 

‘ Here ! what do you mean by that ? ’ 

‘ I mean that he is here.’ 

‘ Where here ? ’ 

‘ Under us. He is under this tomb. He is dead, 
and we are sitting on his grave.’ 

‘ Elfie,’ said the young man, standing up and looking 
at the tomb, ‘ how odd and sad that revelation seems ! 
It quite depresses me for the moment.’ 

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A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


1 Stephen, I didn’t wish to sit here ; but you would 
do so.’ 

‘ You never encouraged him ? ’ 

‘ Never by look, word, or sign,’ she said solemnly. 

* He died of consumption, and was buried the day you 
first came.’ 

* Let us go away. I don’t like standing by him , even 
if you never loved him. He was before me.’ 

‘ Worries make you unreasonable,’ she half pouted, 
following Stephen at the distance of a few steps. ‘ Per- 
haps I ought to have told you before we sat down. Yes ; 
let us go.' 


IX 


* Her father did fume.' 

Oppressed, in spite of themselves, by a foresight 
of impending complications, Elfride and Stephen re- 
turned down the hill hand in hand. At the door they 
paused wistfully, like children late at school. 

Women accept their destiny more readily than men. 
Elfride had now resigned herself to the overwhelming 
idea of her lover’s sorry antecedents ; Stephen had not 
forgotten the trifling grievance that Elfride had known 
earlier admiration than his own. 

‘ What was that young man’s name ? ’ he inquired. 

1 Felix Jethway ; a widow’s only son.’ 

‘ I remember the family.’ 

1 She hates me now. She says I killed him.’ 

Stephen mused, and they entered the porch. 

* Stephen, I love only you,’ she tremulously whispered. 

He pressed her fingers, and the trifling shadow 
passed away, to admit again the mutual and more 
tangible trouble. 

The study appeared to be the only room lighted 
up. They entered, each with a demeanour intended to 
conceal the inconcealable fact that reciprocal love was 
their dominant chord. Elfride perceived a man, sitting 

g 89 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


with his back towards herself, talking to her father 
She would have retired, but Mr. Swancourt had seen 
her. 

* Come in,’ he said ; ‘it is only Martin Cannister, 
come for a copy of the register for poor Mrs. Jethway/ 

Martin Cannister, the sexton, was rather a favourite 
with Elfride. He used to absorb her attention by 
telling her of his strange experiences in digging up 
after long years the bodies of persons he had known, 
and recognizing them by some little sign (though in 
reality he had never recognized any). He had shrewd 
small eyes and a great wealth of double chin, which 
compensated in some measure for considerable poverty 
of nose. 

The appearance of a slip of paper in Cannister’s 
hand, and a few shillings lying on the table in front 
of him, denoted that the business had been transacted, 
and the tenor of their conversation went to show that 
a summary of village news was now engaging the atten- 
tion of parishioner and parson. 

Mr. Cannister stood up and touched his forehead 
over his eye with his finger, in respectful salutation of 
Elfride, gave half as much salute to Stephen (whom he, 
in common with other villagers, had never for a moment 
recognized), then sat down again and resumed his 
discourse. 

‘ Where had I got on to, sir ? * 

‘ To driving the pile,’ said Mr. Swancourt. 

* The pile ’twas. So, as I was saying, Nat was 
driving the pile in this manner, as I might say.’ Here 
Mr. Cannister held his walking-stick scrupulously verti- 
cal with his left hand, and struck a blow with great 
force on the knob of the stick with his right. ‘ John 
was steadying the pile so, as I might say.’ Here he 
gave the stick a slight shake, and looked firmly in the 
various eyes around to see that before proceeding 
further his listeners well grasped the subject at that 

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A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


stage. ‘ Well, when Nat had struck some half-dozen 
blows more upon the pile, ’a stopped for a second or 
two. John, thinking he had done striking, put his 
hand upon the top o’ the pile to gie en a pull, and see if 
’a were firm in the ground.’ Mr. Cannister spread his 
hand over the top of the stick, completely covering it 
with his palm. ‘ Well, so to speak, Nat hadn’t maned 
to stop striking, and when John had put his hand upon 
the pile, the beetle ’ 

‘ Oh dreadful ! ’ said Elfride. 

* The beetle was already coming down, you see, sir. 
Nat just caught sight of his hand, but couldn’t stop 
the blow in time. Down came the beetle upon poor 
John Smith’s hand, and squashed en to a pummy.’ 

‘ Dear me, dear me ! poor fellow ! ’ said the vicai;, 
with an intonation like the groans of the wounded in a 
pianoforte performance of the ‘ Battle of Prague.’ 

‘John Smith, the master - mason ? ’ cried Stephen 
hurriedly. 

* Ay, no other ; and a better-hearted man God 
A’mighty never made.’ 

‘ Is he so much hurt ? ’ 

‘ I have heard,’ said Mr. Swancourt, not noticing 
Stephen, ‘that he has a son in London, a very pro- 
mising young fellow.’ 

* Oh, how he must be hurt ! ’ repeated Stephen. 

‘ A beetle couldn’t hurt very little. Well, sir, good- 
night t’ye ; and ye, sir ; and you, miss, I’m sure.’ 

Mr. Cannister had been making unnoticeable motions 
of withdrawal, and by the time this farewell remark came 
from his lips he was just outside the door of the room. 
He tramped along the hall, stayed more than a minute 
endeavouring to close the door properly, and then was 
lost to their hearing. 

Stephen had meanwhile turned and said to the vicar : 

* Please excuse me this evening ! I must leave. 
John Smith is my father.’ 

9 l 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


The vicar did not comprehend at first. 

‘ What did you say ? ’ he inquired. 

‘John Smith is my father/ said Stephen deliberately. 

A surplus tinge of redness rose from Mr. Swancourt’s 
neck, and came round over his face, the lines of his 
features became more firmly defined, and his lips seemed 
to get thinner. It was evident that a series of little 
circumstances, hitherto unheeded, were now fitting 
themselves together, and forming a lucid picture in 
Mr. Swancourt’s mind in such a manner as to render 
useless further explanation on Stephen’s part. 

‘ Indeed,’ the vicar said, in a voice dry and without 
inflection. 

This being a word which depends entirely upon its 
tone for its meaning, Mr. Swancourt’s enunciation was 
equivalent to no expression at all. 

‘ I have to go now,’ said Stephen, with an agitated 
bearing, and a movement as if he scarcely knew whether 
he ought to run off or stay longer. ‘ On my return, 
sir, will you kindly grant me a few minutes’ private 
conversation ? ’ 

‘ Certainly. Though antecedently it does not seem 
possible that there can be anything of the nature of 
private business between us.’ 

Mr. Swancourt put on his straw hat, crossed the 
drawing-room, into which the moonlight was shining, 
and stepped out of the French window into the 
verandah. It required no further effort to perceive 
what, indeed, reasoning might have foretold as the 
natural colour of a mind whose pleasures were taken 
amid genealogies, good dinners, and patrician reminis- 
cences, that Mr. Swancourt’s prejudices were too strong 
for his generosity, and that Stephen’s moments as his 
friend and equal were numbered, or had even now 
ceased. 

Stephen moved forward as if he would follow the 
vicar, then as if he would not, and in absolute per- 
92 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


plexity whither to turn himself, went awkwardly to the 
door. Elfride followed lingeringly behind him. Before 
he had receded two yards from the doorstep, Unity and 
Ann the housemaid came home from their visit to the 
village. 

* Have you heard anything about John Smith ? The 
accident is not so bad as was reported, is it?’ said 
Elfride intuitively. 

‘ Oh no ; the doctor says it is only a bad bruise.’ 

‘ I thought so ! ’ cried Elfride gladly. 

* He says that, although Nat believes he did not 
check the beetle as it came down, he must have done 
so without knowing it — checked it very considerably 
too ; for the full blow would have knocked his hand 
abroad, and in reality it is only made black-and- 
blue like.’ 

* How thankful I am ! ’ said Stephen. 

The perplexed Unity looked at him with her mouth 
rather than with her eyes. 

‘ That will do, Unity,’ said Elfride magisterially; and 
the two maids passed on. 

‘ Elfride, do you forgive me ? ’ said Stephen with a 
faint smile. ‘ No man is fair in love; ’ and he took her 
fingers lightly in his own. 

With her head thrown sideways in the Greuze 
attitude, she looked a tender reproach at his doubt 
and pressed his hand. Stephen returned the pressure 
threefold, then hastily went off to his father’s cottage 
by the wall of Endelstow Park. 

‘Elfride, what have you to say to this?’ inquired 
her father, coming up immediately Stephen had retired. 

With feminine quickness she grasped at any straw 
that would enable her to plead his cause. ‘ He had told 
me of it,’ she faltered ; ‘ so that it is not a discovery in 
spite of him. He was just coming in to tell you.’ 

‘ Coming to tell ! Why hadn’t he already told ? I 
object as much, if not more, to his underhand conceal- 
93 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


ment of this, than I do to the fact itself. It looks very 
much like his making a fool of me, and of you too. You 
and he have been about together, and corresponding 
together, in a way I don’t at all approve of — in a most 
unseemly way. You should have known how improper 
such conduct is. A woman can’t be too careful not to 
be seen alone with I-don’t-know-whom.’ 

‘ You saw us, papa, and have never said a word.’ 

‘ My fault, of course ; my fault. What the deuce 
could I be thinking of ! He, a villager’s son ; and we, 
Swancourts, connections of the Luxellians. We have 
been coming to nothing for centuries, and now I believe 
we have got there. What shall I next invite here, I 
wonder ! ’ 

Elfride began to cry at this very unpropitious aspect 
of affairs. ‘ O papa, papa, forgive me and him ! We 
care so much for one another, papa — O, so much ! 
And what he was going to ask you is, if you will allow 
of an engagement between us till he is a gentleman as 
good as you. We are not in a hurry, dear papa; we 
don’t want in the least to marry now; not until he is 
richer. Only will you let us be engaged, because I love 
him so, and he loves me ? ’ 

Mr. Swancourt’s feelings were a little touched by 
this appeal, and he was annoyed that such should be 
the case. ‘ Certainly not ! ’ he replied. He pronounced 
the inhibition lengthily and sonorously, so that the ‘ not ’ 
sounded like ‘ n-o-o-o-t ! ’ 

* No, no, no ; don’t say it ! ’ 

‘ Foh ! A fine story. It is not enough that I have 
been deluded and disgraced by having him here, — the 
son of one of my village peasants, — but now I am to 
make him my son-in-law ! Heavens above us, are you 
mad, Elfride?’ 

* You have seen his letters come to me ever since his 
first visit, papa, and you knew they were a sort of — love- 
letters ; and since he has been here you have let him be 

94 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


alone with me almost entirely ; and you guessed, you 
must have guessed, what we were thinking of, and doing, 
and you didn’t stop him. Next to love-making comes 
love-winning, and you knew it would come to that, papa.’ 

The vicar parried this common-sense thrust. ‘ 1 know 
— since you press me so — I know I did guess some 
childish attachment might arise between you ; I own I 
did not take much trouble to prevent it ; but I have not 
particularly countenanced it ; and, Elfride, how can you 
expect that I should now? It is impossible; no father 
in England would hear of such a thing. 5 

‘ But he is the same man, papa ; the same in every 
particular ; and how can he be less fit for me than he 
was before ? 5 

‘ He appeared a young man with well-to-do friends, and 
a little property ; but having neither, he is another man. 5 

‘ You inquired nothing about him ? 5 

‘ I went by Hewby’s introduction. He should have 
told me. So should the young man himself; of course 
he should. I consider it a most dishonourable thing to 
come into a man’s house like a treacherous I-don’t-know- 
what. 5 

‘ But he was afraid to tell you, and so should I have 
been. He loved me too well to like to run the risk. 
And as to speaking of his friends on his first visit, I 
don’t see why he should have done so at all. He came 
here on business : it was no affair of ours who his 
parents were. And then he knew that if he told you he 
would never be asked here, and would perhaps never see 
me again. And he wanted to see me. Who can blame 
him for trying, by any means, to stay near me — the girl 
he loves ? All is fair in love. I have heard you say so 
yourself, papa ; and you yourself would have done just 
as he has — so would any man.’ 

‘And any man, on discovering what I have dis- 
covered, would also do as I do, and mend my mistake ; 
that is, get shot of him again, as soon as the laws of 
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A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


hospitality will allow.’ But Mr. Swancourt then re- 
membered that he was a Christian. ‘ I would not, for 
the world, seem to turn him out of doors,’ he added; 
* but I think he will have the tact to see that he cannot 
stay long after this, with good taste.’ 

‘ He will, because he’s a gentleman. See how grace- 
ful his manners are,’ Elfride went on ; though perhaps 
Stephen’s manners, like the feats of Euryalus, owed their 
attractiveness in her eyes rather to the attractiveness of 
his person than to their own excellence. 

‘Ay; anybody can be what you call graceful, if he 
lives a little time in a city, and keeps his eyes open. 
And he might have picked up his gentlemanliness by 
going to the galleries of theatres, and watching stage 
drawing-room manners. He reminds me of one of the 
worst stories I ever heard in my life.’ 

‘ What story was that ? ’ 

‘ Oh no, thank you ! I wouldn’t tell you such an 
improper matter for the world ! ’ 

‘ If his father and mother had lived in the north or 
east of England,’ gallantly persisted Elfride, though her 
sobs began to interrupt her articulation, ‘ anywhere but 
here — you — would have — only regarded — him , and not 
them ! His station — would have — been what — his pro- 
fession makes it, — and not fixed by — his father’s humble 
position — at all ; whom he never lives with — now. 
Though John Smith has saved lots of money, and is 
better off than we are, they say, or he couldn’t have 
put his son to such an expensive profession. And it 
is clever and — honourable — of Stephen, to be the best 
of his family.’ 

‘ Yes. “ Let a beast be lord of beasts, and his crib 
shall stand at the king’s mess.” ’ 

‘You insult me, papa!’ she burst out. ‘You do, 
you do ! He is my own Stephen, he is ! ’ 

‘That may or may not be true, Elfride,’ returned 
her father, again uncomfortably agitated in spite of 
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A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


himself. * You confuse future probabilities with present 
facts, — what the young man may be with what he is. 
We must look at what he is, not wiiat an improbable 
degree of success in his profession may make him. 
The case is this : the son of a w r orking-man in my 
parish who may or may not be able to buy me up — . 
a youth wiio has not yet advanced so far into life as 
to have any income of his own deserving the name, and 
therefore of his father’s degree as regards station — wants 
to be engaged to you. His family are living in precisely 
the same spot in England as yours, so throughout this 
county — which is the world to us — you would always 
be known as the wife of Jack Smith the mason’s son, 
and not under any circumstances as the wife of a 
London professional man. It is the drawback, not the 
compensating fact, that is talked of always. There, say 
no more. You may argue all night, and prove what 
you will ; I’ll stick to my words.’ 

Elfride looked silently and hopelessly out of the 
window with large heavy eyes and wet cheeks. 

‘ I call it great temerity — and long to call it audacity 
- — in Hewby,’ resumed her father. ‘ I never heard such 
a thing — giving such a hobbledehoy native of this place 
such an introduction to me as he did. Naturally you 
were deceived as well as I w^as. I don’t blame you at 
all, so far.’ He went and searched for Mr. Hewby’s 
original letter. ‘ Here’s what he said to me : “ Dear 
Sir, — Agreeably to your request of the 18th instant, 
I have arranged to survey and make drawings,” et catera . 
“ My assistant, Mr. Stephen Smith ” — assistant, you see 
he called him, and naturally I understood him to mean 
a sort of partner. Why didn’t he say “ clerk ” ? ’ 

« They never call them clerks in that profession, 
because they do not write. Stephen — Mr. Smith — told 
me so. So that Mr. Hewby simply used the accepted 
word.’ 

‘ Let me speak, please, Elfride ! “ My assistant, Mr. 

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A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


Stephen Smith, will leave London by the early train 
to-morrow morning . . . many thanks for your proposal 
to accommodate him . . . you may put every confidence in 
him , and may rely upon his discernment in the matter 
of church architecture.” Well, I repeat that Hewby 
ought to be ashamed of himself for making so much 
of a poor lad of that sort/ 

‘ Professional men in London/ Elfride argued, ‘ don’t 
know anything about their clerks’ fathers and mothers. 
They have assistants who come to their offices and 
shops for years, and hardly even know where they live. 
What they can do — what profits they can bring the firm 
— that’s all London men care about. And that is helped 
in him by his faculty of being uniformly pleasant.’ 

‘ Uniform pleasantness is rather a defect than a 
faculty. It shows that a man hasn’t sense enough to 
know whom to despise.’ 

‘ It shows that he acts by faith and not by sight, as 
those you claim succession from directed.’ 

‘ That’s some more of what he’s been telling you, 
I suppose! Yes, I was inclined to suspect him, 
because he didn’t care about sauces of any kind. I 
always did doubt a man’s being a gentleman if his 
palate had no acquired tastes. An unedified palate is 
the irrepressible cloven foot of the upstart. The idea 
of my bringing out a bottle of my ’40 Martinez — only 
eleven of them left now — to a man who didn’t know it 
from eighteenpenny ! Then the Latin line he gave to 
my quotation; it was very cut-and- dried, very; or I, 
who haven’t looked into a classical author for the last 
eighteen years, shouldn’t have remembered it. Well, 
Elfride, you had better go to your room; you’ll get 
over this bit of tomfoolery in time.’ 

‘ No, no, no, papa,’ she moaned. For of all the 
miseries attaching to miserable love, the worst is the 
misery of thinking that the passion which is the cause 
of them all may cease. 


98 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


* Elfride,’ said her father with rough friendliness, ‘ I 
have an excellent scheme on hand, which I cannot 
tell you of now. A scheme to benefit you and me. 
It has been thrust upon me for some little time — 
yes, thrust upon me — but I didn’t dream of its value 
till this afternoon, when the revelation came. I should 
be most unwise to refuse to entertain it.’ 

‘ I don’t like that word,’ she returned wearily. 
‘You have lost so much already by schemes. Is it 
those wretched mines again ? ’ 

‘ No ; not a mining scheme.’ 

‘ Railways ? ’ 

‘ Nor railways. It is like those mysterious offers 
we see advertised, by which any gentleman with no 
brains at all may make so much a week without risk, 
trouble, or soiling his fingers. However, I am in- 
tending to say nothing till it is settled, though I will 
just say this much, that you soon may have other fish 
to fry than to think of Stephen Smith. Remember, 
I wish, not to be angry, but friendly, to the young 
man ; for your sake I’ll regard him as a friend in a 
certain sense. But this is enough ; in a few days 
you will be quite my way of thinking. There, now, 
go to your bedroom. Unity shall bring you up some 
supper. I wish you not to be here when he comes 
back.’ 


X 


* Beneath the shelter of an aged tree.’ 

STEPHEN retraced his steps towards the cottage he 
had visited only two or three hours previously. He 
drew near and under the rich foliage growing about 
the outskirts of Endelstow Park, the spotty lights and 
shades from the shining moon maintaining a race over 
his head and down his back in an endless gambol. 
When he crossed the plank bridge and entered the 
garden-gate, he saw an illuminated figure coming from 
the enclosed plot towards the house on the other side. 
It was his father, with his hand in a sling, taking a 
general moonlight view of the garden, and particularly 
of a plot of the youngest of young turnips, previous 
to closing the cottage for the night 

He saluted his son with customary force. ‘ Hallo, 
Stephen ! We should ha’ been in bed in another ten 
minutes. Come to see what’s the matter wi’ me, I 
suppose, my lad ? ’ 

The doctor had come and gone, and the hand had 
been pronounced as injured but slightly, though it 
might possibly have been considered a far more serious 
case if Mr. Smith had been a more important man. 
Stephen’s anxious inquiry drew from his father words 
ioo 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


of regret at the inconvenience to the world of his 
doing nothing for the next two days, rather than of 
concern for the pain of the accident. Together they 
entered the house. 

John Smith — brown as autumn as to skin, white 
as winter as to clothes — was a satisfactory specimen 
of the village artificer in stone. In common with 
most rural mechanics, he had too much individuality 
to be a typical ‘ working-man ’ — a resultant of that 
beach-pebble attrition with his kind only to be ex- 
perienced in large towns, which metamorphoses the 
unit Self into a fraction of the unit Class. 

There was not the speciality in his labour which 
distinguishes the handicraftsmen of towns. Though 
only a mason, strictly speaking, he was not above 
handling a brick, if bricks were the order of the day ; 
or a slate or tile, if a roof had to be covered before 
the wet weather set in, and nobody was near who 
could do it better. Indeed, on one or two occasions 
in the depth of winter, when frost peremptorily forbids 
all use of the trowel, making foundations to settle, 
stones to fly, and mortar to crumble, he had taken 
to felling and sawing trees. Moreover, he had prac- 
tised gardening in his own plot for so many years 
that, on an emergency, he might have made a living 
by that calling. 

Probably our countryman was not such an accom- 
plished artificer in a particular direction as his town 
brethren in the trades. But he was, in truth, like that 
clumsy pin-maker who made the »whole pin, and who 
was despised by Adam Smith on that account and 
respected by Macaulay, much more the artist never- 
theless. 

Appearing now, indoors, by the light of the candle, 
his stalwart healthiness was a sight to see. His beard 
was close and knotted as that of a chiselled Hercules ; 
his shirt sleeves were partly rolled up, his waistcoat 

IOI 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


unbuttoned; the difference in hue between the snowy 
linen and the ruddy arms and face contrasting like the 
white of an egg and its yolk. Mrs. Smith, on hearing 
them enter, advanced from the pantry. 

Mrs. Smith was a matron whose countenance ad- 
dressed itself to the mind rather than to the eye, though 
not exclusively. She retained her personal freshness 
even now, in the prosy afternoon-time of her life ; but 
what her features were primarily indicative of was a 
sound common sense behind them ; as a whole, appear- 
ing to carry with them a sort of argumentative commen- 
tary on the world in general. 

The details of the accident were then rehearsed by 
Stephen’s father, in the dramatic manner also common 
to Martin Cannister, other individuals of the neighbour- 
hood, and the rural world generally. Mrs. Smith threw 
in her sentiments between the acts, as Coryphaeus of 
the tragedy, to make the description complete. The 
story at last came to an end, as the longest will, and 
Stephen directed the conversation into another channel. 

‘ Well, mother, they know everything about me now,’ 
he said quietly. 

‘ Well done ! ’ replied his father ; ‘ now my mind’s 
at peace.’ 

‘ I blame myself — I never shall forgive myself — for 
not telling them before,’ continued the young man. 

Mrs. Smith at this point abstracted her mind from 
the former subject. ‘ I don’t see what you have to 
grieve about, Stephen,’ she said. * People who acci- 
dentally get friends don’t, as a first stroke, tell the 
history of their families.’ 

‘Ye’ve done no wrong, certainly,’ said his father. 

‘ No ; but I should have spoken sooner. There’s 
more in this visit of mine than you think — a good deal 
more/ 

‘ Not more than I think,’ Mrs. Smith replied, look- 
ing contemplatively at him. Stephen blushed ; and his 
102 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


father looked from one to the other in a state of utter 
incomprehension. 

‘ She's a pretty piece enough/ Mrs. Smith continued, 
‘ and very lady-like and clever too. But though she's 
very well fit for you as far as that is, why, mercy 'pon 
me, what ever do you want any woman at all for yet ? ' 

John made his naturally short mouth a long one, 
and wrinkled his forehead, ‘ That’s the way the wind 
d’blow, is it ? ' he said. 

‘ Mother,’ exclaimed Stephen, ‘ how absurdly you 
speak ! Criticizing whether she’s fit for me or no, as 
if there were room for doubt on the matter ! Why, to 
marry her would be the great blessing of my life — socially 
and practically, as well as in other respects. No such 
good fortune as that, I’m afraid; she’s too far above 
me. Her family doesn’t want such country lads as I 
in it.’ 

* Then if they don’t want you, I’d see them dead 
corpses before I’d want them, and go to better families 
who do want you.’ 

‘ Ah, yes ; but I could never put up with the distaste 
of being welcomed among such people as you mean, 
whilst I could get indifference among such people as 
hers.’ 

‘ What crazy twist o’ thinking will enter your head 
next ? ’ said his mother. ‘ And come to that, she’s not 
a bit too high for you, or you too low for her. See 
how careful I be to keep myself up. I’m sure I never 
stop for more than a minute together to talk to any 
journeymen people; and I never invite anybody to our 
party o’ Christmases who are not in business for them- 
selves. And I talk to several toppermost carriage people 
that come to my lord’s without saying ma’am or sir to 
’em, and they take it as quiet as lambs.’ 

‘ You curtseyed to the vicar, mother ; and I wish 
you hadn’t.’ 

‘ But it was before he called me by my Christian 
_ 103 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


name, or he would have got very little curtseying from 
me!’ said Mrs. Smith, bridling and sparkling with 
vexation. ‘You go on at me, Stephen, as if I were 
your worst enemy ! What else could I do with the man 
to get rid of him, banging it into me and your father 
by side and by seam, about his greatness, and what 
happened when he was a young fellow at college, and I 
don’t know what-all ; the tongue o’ en flopping round 
his mouth like a mop-rag round a dairy. That ’a did, 
didn’t he, John ? ’ 

‘ That’s about the size o’t,’ replied her husband. 

* Every woman now-a-days,’ resumed Mrs. Smith, 
‘ if she marry at all, must expect a father-in-law of a 
rank lower than her father. The men have gone up so, 
and the women have stood still. Every man you meet 
is more the dand than his father ; and you are just level 
wi’ her.’ 

‘ That’s what she thinks herself.’ 

‘ It only shows her sense. I knew she was after ’ee, 
Stephen — I knew it.’ 

‘ After me ! Good Lord, what next ! ’ 

‘ And I really must say again that you ought not 
to be in such a hurry, and wait for a few years. You 
might go higher than a bankrupt pa’son’s girl then.’ 

‘ The fact is, mother,’ said Stephen impatiently, f you 
don’t know anything about it. I shall never go higher, 
because I don’t want to, nor should I if I lived to be 
a hundred. As to you saying that she’s after me, I 
don’t like such a remark about her, for it implies a 
scheming woman, and a man worth scheming for, both 
of which are not only untrue, but ludicrously untrue, 
of this case. Isn’t it so, father ? ’ 

* I’m afraid I don’t understand the matter well 
enough to gie my opinion,’ said his father, in the tone 
of the fox who had a cold and could not smell. 

‘ She couldn’t have been very backward anyhow, 
considering the short time you have known her,’ said 
104 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


his mother. ‘ Well I think that five years hence you’ll 
be plenty young enough to think of such things. And 
really she can very well afford to wait, and will too, take 
my word. Living down in an out-step place like this, 
I am sure she ought to be very thankful that you took 
notice of her. She’d most likely have died an old maid 
if you hadn’t turned up/ 

‘ All nonsense,’ said Stephen, but not aloud. 

‘ A nice little thing she is,’ Mrs. Smith went on in 
a more complacent tone now that Stephen had been 
talked down ; ‘ there’s not a word to say against her, 
I’ll own. I see her sometimes decked out like a horse 
going to fair, and I admire her for’t. A perfect little 
lady. But people can’t help their thoughts, and if she’d 
learnt to make figures instead of letters when she was 
at school ’twould have been better for her pocket ; for 
as I said, there never were worse times for such as she 
than now.’ 

‘ Now, now, mother ! ’ said Stephen with smiling 
deprecation. 

‘ But I will ! ’ said his mother with asperity. ‘ I 
don’t read the papers for nothing, and I know men all 
move up a stage by marriage. Men of her class, that 
is, parsons, marry squires’ daughters; squires marry 
lords’ daughters ; lords marry dukes’ daughters ; dukes 
marry queens’ daughters. All stages of gentlemen 
mate a stage higher; and the lowest stage of gentle- 
women are left single, or marry out of their class.’ 

‘ But you said just now, dear mother ’ retorted 

Stephen, unable to resist the temptation of showing 
his mother her inconsistency. Then he paused. 

‘ Well, what did I say ? ’ And Mrs. Smith prepared 
her lips for a new campaign. 

Stephen, regretting that he had begun, since a 
volcano might be the consequence, was obliged to 
go on. 

‘You said I wasn’t out of her class just before/ 

h 105 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


‘ Yes, there, there ! That’s you ; that’s my own 
flesh and blood. I’ll warrant that you’ll pick holes in 
everything your mother says, if you can, Stephen. You 
are just like your father for that ; take anybody’s part 
but mine. Whilst I am speaking and talking and 
trying and slaving away for your good, you are waiting 
to catch me out in that way. So you are in her class, 
but ’tis what her people would call marrying out of her 
class. Don’t be so quarrelsome, Stephen ! ’ 

Stephen preserved a discreet silence, in which he was 
imitated by his father, and for several minutes nothing 
was heard but the ticking of the green-faced case-clock 
against the wall. 

‘ I’m sure,’ added Mrs. Smith in a more philosophic 
tone, and as a terminative speech, ‘ if there’d been so 
much trouble to get a husband in my time as there is in 
these days — when you must make a god-almighty of a 
man to get en to hae ye — I’d have trod clay for bricks 
before I’d ever have lowered my dignity to marry, or 
there’s no bread in nine loaves.’ 

The discussion now dropped, and as it was getting 
late, Stephen bade his parents farewell for the evening, 
his mother none the less warmly for their sparring ; for 
although Mrs. Smith and Stephen were always contend- 
ing, they were never at enmity. 

‘ And possibly,’ said Stephen, ‘ I may leave here 
altogether to-morrow; I don’t know. So that if I 
shouldn’t call again before returning to London, don’t 
be alarmed, will you ? ’ 

‘ But didn’t you come for a fortnight ? ’ said his 
mother. ‘And haven’t you a month’s holiday alto- 
gether ? They are going to turn you out, then ? ’ 

‘Not at all. I may stay longer; I may go. If I go, 
you had better say nothing about my having been here, 
for her sake. At what time of the morning does the 
carrier pass Endelstow lane ? ’ 

‘ Seven o’clock.’ 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


And then he left them. His thoughts were, that 
should the vicar permit him to become engaged, to hope 
for an engagement, or in any way to think of his beloved 
Elfride, he might stay longer. Should he be forbidden 
to think of any such thing, he resolved to go at once. 
And the latter, even to young hopefulness, seemed the 
more probable alternative. 

Stephen walked back to the vicarage through the 
meadows, as he had come, surrounded by the soft 
musical purl of the water through little weirs, the modest 
light of the moon, the freshening smell of the dews out- 
spread around. It was a time when mere seeing is 
meditation, and meditation peace. Stephen was hardly 
philosopher enough to avail himself of Nature’s offer. 
His constitution was made up of very simple particulars ; 
was one which, rare in the spring-time of civilizations, 
seems to grow abundant as a nation gets older, individu- 
ality fades, and education spreads ; that is, his brain had 
extraordinary receptive powers, and no great creativeness. 
Quickly acquiring any kind of knowledge he saw around 
him, and having a plastic adaptability more common in 
woman than in man, he changed colour like a chameleon 
as the society he found himself in assumed a higher and 
more artificial tone. He had not many original ideas, 
and yet there was scarcely an idea to which, under 
proper training, he could not have added a respectable 
co-ordinate. 

He saw nothing outside himself to-night ; and what 
he saw within was a weariness to his flesh. Yet to a 
dispassionate observer, his pretensions to Elfride, though 
rather premature, were far from absurd as marriages go, 
unless the accidental proximity of simple but honest 
parents could be said to make them so. 

The clock struck eleven when he entered the house. 
Elfride had been waiting with scarcely a movement since 
he departed. Before he had spoken to her she caught 
sight of him passing into the study with her father. She 
107 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


saw that he had by some means obtained the private 
interview he desired. 

A nervous headache had been growing on the ex- 
citable girl during the absence of Stephen, and now she 
could do nothing beyond going up again to her room as 
she had done before. Instead of lying down she sat 
again in the darkness without closing the door, and 
listened with a beating heart to every sound from down- 
stairs. The servants had gone to bed. She ultimately 
heard the two men come from the study and cross to 
the dining-room, where supper had been lingering for 
more than an hour. The door was left open, and she 
found that the meal, such as it was, passed off between 
her father and her lover without any remark, save 
commonplaces as to cucumbers and melons, their whole- 
someness and culture, uttered in a stiff and formal way. 
It seemed to prefigure failure. 

Shortly afterwards Stephen came upstairs to his bed- 
room, and was almost immediately followed by her father, 
who also retired for the night. Not inclined to get a 
light, she partly undressed and sat on the bed, where she 
remained in pained thought for some time, possibly an 
hour. Then rising to close her door previously to fully 
unrobing, she saw a streak of light shining across the 
landing. Her father’s door was shut, and he could be 
heard snoring regularly. The light came from Stephen’s 
room, and the slight sounds also coming thence em- 
phatically denoted what he was doing. In the perfect 
silence she could hear the closing of a lid and the click- 
ing of a lock, — he was fastening his hat-box. Then 
the buckling of straps and the click of another key, 
— he was securing his portmanteau. With trebled 
foreboding she opened her door softly, and went to- 
wards his. One sensation pervaded her to distrac- 
tion. Stephen, her handsome youth and darling, was 
going away, and she might never see him again except 
in secret and in sadness — perhaps never more. At 
108 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


any rate, she could no longer wait till the morning to 
hear the result of the interview, as she had intended. 
She flung her dressing-gown round her, tapped lightly 
at his door, and whispered * Stephen ! * He came 
instantly, opened the door, and stepped out. 

* Tell me ; are we to hope ? 5 

He replied in a disturbed whisper, and a tear ap- 
proached its outlet, though none fell. 

‘ I am not to think of such a preposterous thing — 
that’s what he said. And I am going to-morrow. I 
should have called you up to bid you good-bye.’ 

‘ But he didn’t say you were to go — O Stephen, he 
didn’t say that ? ’ 

‘ No ; not in words. But I cannot stav.’ 

‘ Oh, don’t, don’t go ! Do come and let us talk. 
Let us come down to the drawing-room for a few 
minutes ; he will hear us here.’ 

She preceded him down the staircase with the taper 
light in her hand, looking unnaturally tall and thin in 
the long dove-coloured dressing-gown she wore. She 
did not stop to think of the propriety or otherwise of 
this midnight interview under such circumstances. She 
thought that the tragedy of her life was beginning, and, 
for the first time almost, felt that her existence might 
have a grave side, the shade of which enveloped and 
rendered invisible the delicate gradations of custom and 
punctilio. Elfride softly opened the drawing-room door 
and they both went in. When she had placed the 
candle on the table, he enclosed her with his arms, 
dried her eyes with his handkerchief, and kissed their 
lids. 

‘ Stephen, it is over — happy love is over ; and there 
is no more sunshine now ! ’ 

‘ I will make a fortune, and come to you, and have 
you. Yes, I will ! ’ 

1 Papa will never hear of it — never — never ! You 
don’t know him. I do. He is either biassed in favour 
109 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


of a thing, or prejudiced against it. Argument is power- 
less against either feeling/ 

‘ No ; I won’t think of him so/ said Stephen. ‘ If I 
appear before him some time hence as a man of estab- 
lished name, he will accept me — I know he will. He 
is not a wicked man.’ 

‘No, he is not wicked. But you say “ some time 
hence,” as if it were no time. To you, among bustle 
and excitement, it will be comparatively a short time, 
perhaps ; oh, to me, it will be its real length trebled ! 
Every summer will be a year — autumn a year — winter 
a year ! O Stephen ! and you may forget me ! ’ 

Forget : that was, and is, the real sting of waiting to 
fond-hearted woman. The remark awoke in Stephen 
the converse fear. ‘You, too, may be persuaded to 
give me up, when time has made me fainter in your 
memory. For, remember, your love for me must be 
nourished in secret; there will be no long visits from 
me to support you. Circumstances will always tend to 
obliterate me.’ 

‘ Stephen,’ she said, filled with her own misgivings, 
and unheeding his last words, ‘ there are beautiful 
women where you live — of course I know there are — 
and they may win you away from me.’ Her tears came 
visibly as she drew a mental picture of his faithlessness. 
‘ And it won’t be your fault,’ she continued, looking 
into the candle with doleful eyes. ‘ No ! You will 
think that our family don’t want you, and get to include 
me with them. And there will be a vacancy in your 
heart, and some others will be let in.’ 

‘ I could not, I would not. Elfie, do not be so 
full of forebodings.’ 

‘ Oh yes, they will,’ she replied. ‘ And you will 
look at them, not caring at first, and then you will 
look and be interested, and after a while you will think, 
“ Ah, they know all about city life, and assemblies, 
and coteries, and the manners of the titled, and poor 
no 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


little Elfie, with all the fuss that’s made about her 
having me, doesn’t know about anything but a little 
house and a few cliffs and a space of sea, far away.” 
And then you’ll be more interested in them, and they’ll 
make you have them instead of me, on purpose to be 
cruel to me because I am silly, and they are clever 
and hate me. And I hate them, too ; yes, I do ! ’ 

Her impulsive words had power to impress him 
at any rate with the recognition of the uncertainty of 
all that is not accomplished. And, worse than that 
general feeling, there of course remained the sadness 
which arose from the special features of his own case. 
However remote a desired issue may be, the mere 
fact of having entered the groove which leads to it, 
cheers to some extent with a sense of accomplishment. 
Had Mr. Swancourt consented to an engagement of 
no less length than ten years, Stephen would have 
been comparatively cheerful in waiting; they would 
have felt that they were somewhere on the road to 
Cupid’s garden. But, with a possibility of a shorter 
probation, they had not as yet any prospect of the 
beginning; the zero of hope had yet to be reached. 
Mr. Swancourt would have to revoke his formidable 
words before the waiting for marriage could even set 
in. And this was despair. 

‘ I wish we could marry now,’ murmured Stephen, 
as an impossible fancy. 

* So do I,’ said she also, as if regarding an idle 
dream. ‘ ’Tis the only thing that ever does sweet- 
hearts good ! ’ 

* Secretly would do, would it not, Elfie ? ’ 

* Yes, secretly would do ; secretly would indeed be 
best,’ she said, and went on reflectively : ‘ All we want 
is to render it absolutely impossible for any future 
circumstance to upset our future intention of being 
happy together ; not to begin being happy now.’ 

* Exactly,’ he murmured in a voice and manner the 

hi 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


counterpart of hers. 1 To marry and part secretly, and 
live on as we are living now ; merely to put it out of 
anybody’s power to force you away from me, dearest.’ 

‘ Or you away from me, Stephen.’ 

‘ Or me from you. It is possible to conceive a force 
of circumstance strong enough to make any woman 
in the world marry against her will : no conceivable 
pressure, up to torture or starvation, can make a woman 
once married to her lover anybody else’s wife.’ 

Now up to this point the idea of an immediate 
secret marriage had been held by both as an untenable 
hypothesis, wherewith simply to beguile a miserable 
moment. During a pause which followed Stephen’s 
last remark, a fascinating perception, then an alluring 
conviction, flashed along the brain of both. The 
perception was that an immediate marriage could be 
contrived ; the conviction that such an act, in spite 
of its daring, its fathomless results, its deceptiveness, 
would be preferred by each to the life they must lead 
under any other conditions. 

The youth spoke first, and his voice trembled with 
the magnitude of the conception he was cherishing. 
‘ How strong we should feel, Elfride ! going on our 
separate courses as before, without the fear of ultimate 
separation ! O Elfride ! think of it ; think of it ! ’ 

It is certain that the young girl’s love for Stephen 
received a fanning from her father’s opposition which 
made it blaze with a dozen times the intensity it would 
have exhibited if left alone. Never were conditions 
more favourable for developing a girl’s first passing 
fancy for a handsome boyish face — a fancy rooted in 
inexperience and nourished by seclusion — into a wild 
unreflecting passion fervid enough for anything. All 
the elements of such a development were there, the 
chief one being hopelessness — a necessary ingredient 
always to perfect the mixture of feelings united under 
the name of loving to distraction. 

1 12 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


‘We would tell papa soon, would we not?’ she 
inquired timidly. ‘ Nobody else need know. He 
would then be convinced that hearts cannot be played 
with; love encouraged be ready to grow, love dis- 
couraged be ready to die, at a moment’s notice. 
Stephen, do you not think that if marriages against 
a parent’s consent are ever justifiable, they are when 
young people have been favoured up to a point, as 
we have, and then have had that favour suddenly 
withdrawn ? ’ 

‘ Yes. It is not as if we had from the beginning 
acted in opposition to your papa’s wishes. Only think, 
Elfie, how pleasant he was towards me but six hours 
ago ! He liked me, praised me, never objected to my 
being alone with you.’ 

‘ I believe he must like you now,’ she cried. ‘ And 
if he found that you irremediably belonged to me, he 
would own it and help you. ‘ O Stephen, Stephen,’ 
she burst out again, as the remembrance of his packing 
came afresh to her mind, ‘ I cannot bear your going 
away like this ! It is too dreadful. All I have been 
expecting miserably killed within me like this ! ’ 

Stephen flushed hot with impulse. ‘ I will not be a 
doubt to you — thought of you shall not be a misery to 
me ! ’ he said. * We will be wife and husband before 
we part for long ! ’ 

She hid her face on his shoulder. ‘ Anything to 
make sure ! ’ she whispered. 

‘ I did not like to propose it immediately,’ continued 
Stephen. ‘ It seemed to me — it seems to me now — 
like trying to catch you — a girl better in the world 
than I.’ 

« Not that, indeed ! And am I better in worldly 
station? What’s the use of have beens ? We may 
have been something once ; we are nothing now.’ 

Then they whispered long and earnestly together; 
Stephen hesitatingly proposing this and that plan, 
113 H 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


Elfride modifying them, with quick breathings, and 
hectic flush, and unnaturally bright eyes. It was two 
o’clock before an arrangement was finally concluded. 

She then told him to leave her, giving him his light 
to go up to his own room. They parted with an agree- 
ment not to meet again in the morning. After his door 
had been some time closed he heard her softly gliding 
into her chamber. 


XI 


‘Journeys end in lovers meeting.’ 

STEPHEN lay watching the Great Bear; Elfride was 
regarding a monotonous parallelogram of window blind. 
Neither slept that night. 

Early the next morning — that is to say, four hours 
after their stolen interview, and just as the earliest 
servant was heard moving about — Stephen Smith went 
downstairs, portmanteau in hand. Throughout the 
night he had intended to see Mr. Swancourt again, 
but the sharp rebuff of the previous evening rendered 
such an interview particularly distasteful. Perhaps 
there was another and less honest reason. He decided 
to put it off. Whatever of moral timidity or obliquity 
may have lain in such a decision, no perception of it 
was strong enough to detain him. He wrote a note in 
his room, which stated simply that he did not feel 
happy in the house after Mr. Swancourt’s sudden veto 
on what he had favoured a few hours before ; but that 
he hoped a time would come, and that soon, when his 
original feelings of pleasure as Mr. Swancourt’s guest 
might be recovered. 

He expected to find the downstairs rooms wearing 
the gray and cheerless aspect that early morning gives 
XI 5 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


to everything out of the sun. He found in the dining* 
room a breakfast laid, of which somebody had just 
partaken. 

Stephen gave the maid-servant his note of adieu. 
She stated that Mr. Swancourt had risen early that 
morning, and made an early breakfast. He was not 
going away that she knew of. 

Stephen took a cup of coffee, left the house of his 
love, and turned into the lane. It was so early that 
the shaded places still smelt like night time, and the 
sunny spots had hardly felt the sun. The horizontal 
rays made every shallow dip in the ground to show as 
a well-marked hollow. Even the channel of the path 
was enough to throw shade, and the very stones of the 
road cast tapering dashes of darkness westward, as long 
as Jael’s tent- nail. 

At a spot not more than a hundred yards from the 
vicar’s residence the lane leading thence crossed the high 
road. Stephen reached the point of intersection, stood 
still and listened. Nothing could be heard save the 
lengthy, murmuring line of the sea upon the adjacent 
shore. He looked at his watch, and then mounted a 
gate upon which he seated himself, to await the arrival 
of the carrier. Whilst he sat he heard wheels coming 
in two directions. 

The vehicle approaching on his right he soon recog- 
nized as the carrier’s. There were the accompanying 
sounds of the owner’s voice and the smack of his whip, 
distinct in the still morning air, by which he encouraged 
his horses up the hill. 

The other set of wheels sounded from the lane 
Stephen had just traversed. On closer observation, he 
perceived that they were moving from the precincts of 
the ancient manor-house adjoining the vicarage grounds. 
A carriage then left the entrance gates of the house, and 
wheeling round came fully in sight. It was a plain 
travelling carriage, with a small quantity of luggage, 
1 16 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


apparently a lady’s. The vehicle came to the junction 
of the four ways half-a-minute before the carrier reached 
the same spot, and crossed directly in his front, pro- 
ceeding by the lane on the other side. 

Inside the carriage Stephen could just discern an 
elderly lady with a younger woman, who seemed to be 
her maid. The road they had taken led to Stratleigh, 
a small watering-place sixteen miles north. 

He heard the manor-house gates swing again, and 
looking up saw another person leaving them, and walking 
off in the direction of the parsonage. * Ah, how much 
I wish I were moving that way ! ’ felt he parenthetically. 
The gentleman was tall, and resembled Mr. Swancourt 
in outline and attire. He opened the vicarage gate and 
went in. Mr. Swancourt, then, it certainly was. Instead 
of remaining in bed that morning Mr. Swancourt must 
have taken it into his head to see his new neighbour off 
on a journey. He must have been greatly interested in 
that neighbour to do such an unusual thing. 

The carrier’s conveyance had pulled up, and Stephen 
now handed in his portmanteau and mounted the shafts. 
* Who is that lady in the carriage ? ’ he inquired in- 
differently of Lickpan the carrier. 

‘ That, sir, is Mrs. Troy ton, a widder wi’ a mint o’ 
money. She’s the owner of all that part of Endelstow 
that is not Lord Luxellian’s. Only been here a short 
time; she came into it by law. The owner formerly 
was a terrible mysterious party — never lived here — 
hardly ever was seen here except in the month of 
September, as I might say.’ 

The horses were started again, and noise rendered 
further discourse a matter of too great exertion. Stephen 
crept inside under the tilt, and was soon lost in reverie. 

Three hours and a half of straining up hills and 
jogging down brought them to St. Launce’s, the market 
town and railway station nearest to Endelstow, and the 
place from which Stephen Smith had journeyed over the 
117 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


downs on the, to him, memorable winter evening at the 
beginning of the same year. The carrier's van was so 
timed as to meet a starting up-train, which Stephen 
entered. Two or three hours' railway travel through 
vertical cuttings in metamorphic rock, through oak 
copses rich and green, stretching over slopes and down 
delightful valleys, glens, and ravines, sparkling with 
water like many-rilled Ida, and he plunged amid the 
hundred and fifty thousand people composing the town 
of Plymouth. 

There being some time upon his hands he left his 
luggage at the cloak-room, and went on foot along 
Bedford Street to the nearest church. Here Stephen 
wandered among the multifarious tombstones and looked 
in at the chancel window, dreaming of something that 
was likely to happen by the altar there in the course of 
the coming month. He turned away and ascended the 
Hoe, viewed the magnificent stretch of sea and massive 
promontories of land, but without particularly discerning 
one feature of the varied perspective. He still saw that 
inner prospect — the event he hoped for in yonder 
church. The wide Sound, the Breakwater, the light- 
house on far-off Eddystone, the dark steam vessels, 
brigs, barques, and schooners, either floating stilly, or 
gliding with tiniest motion, were as the dream, then ; 
the dreamed-of event was as the reality. 

Soon Stephen went down from the Hoe, and returned 
to the railway station. He took his ticket, and entered 
the London train. 

That day was an irksome time at Endelstow vicarage. 
Neither father nor daughter alluded to the departure of 
Stephen. Mr. Swancourt's manner towards her partook 
of the compunctious kindness that arises from a misgiving 
as to the justice of some previous act. 

Either from lack of the capacity to grasp the whole 
coup d’azil , or from a natural endowment for certain kinds 
1 18 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


of stoicism, women are cooler than men in critical situa- 
tions of the passive form. Probably, in Elfride’s case at 
least, it was blindness to the greater contingencies of the 
future she was preparing for herself, which enabled her 
to ask her father in a quiet voice if he could give her 
a holiday soon, to ride to St. Launce’s and go on to 
Plymouth. 

Now, she had only once before gone alone to Ply- 
mouth, and that was in consequence of some unavoid- 
able difficulty. Being a country girl, and a good, not 
to say a wild, horsewoman, it had been her delight to 
canter, without the ghost of an attendant, over the four- 
teen or sixteen miles of hard road intervening between 
their home and the station at St. Launce’s, put up the 
horse, and go on the remainder of the distance by train, 
returning in the same manner in the evening It was 
then resolved that, though she had successfully accom- 
plished this journey once, it was not to be repeated 
without some attendance. 

But Elfride must not be confounded with ordinary 
young feminine equestrians. The circumstances of her 
lonely and narrow life made it imperative that in trotting 
about the neighbourhood she must trot alone or else 
not at all. Usage soon rendered this perfectly natural 
to herself. Her father, who had had other experiences, 
did not much like the idea of a Swancourt, whose pedigree 
could be as distinctly traced as a thread in a skein of 
silk, scampering over the hills like a farmer’s daughter, 
even though he could habitually neglect her. But what 
with his not being able to afford her a regular attendant, 
and his inveterate habit of letting anything be to save 
himself trouble, the circumstance grew customary. And 
so there arose a chronic notion in the villagers’ minds 
that all ladies rode without an attendant, like Miss 
Swancourt, except a few who were sometimes visiting at 
Lord Luxellian’s. 

‘ I don’t like your going to Plymouth alone, particu 

r 19 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


larly going to St. Launce’s on horseback. Why not 
drive, and take the man ? ’ 

‘ It is not nice to be so overlooked.’ Worm’s company 
would not seriously have interfered with her plans, but 
it was her humour to go without him. 

* WEen do you want to go ? ’ said her father 

She only answered, * Soon.’ 

‘ I will consider,’ he said. 

Only a few days elapsed before she asked again. A 
letter had reached her from Stephen. It had been timed 
to come on that day by special arrangement between 
them. In it he named the earliest morning on which he 
could meet her at Plymouth. Her father had been on a 
journey to Stratleigh, and returned in unusual buoyancy 
of spirit. It was a good opportunity; and since the 
dismissal of Stephen her father had been generally in a 
mood to make small concessions, that he might steer 
clear of large ones connected with that outcast lover 
of hers. 

* Next Thursday week I am going from home in a 
different direction,’ said her father. ‘ In fact, I shall 
leave home the night before. You might choose the 
same day, for they wish to take up the carpets, or some 
such thing, I think. As I said, I don’t like you to be 
seen in a town on horseback alone ; but go if you will.’ 

Thursday week. Her father had named the very 
day that Stephen also had named that morning as the 
earliest on which it would be of any use to meet her ; 
that was, about fifteen days from the day on which he 
had left Endelstow. Fifteen days — that fragment of dura- 
tion which has acquired such an interesting individuality 
from its connection with the English marriage law. 

She involuntarily looked at her father so strangely, 
that on becoming conscious of the look she paled with 
embarrassment. Her father, too, looked confused. What 
was he thinking of? 

There seemed to be a special facility offered her by a 
120 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


power external to herself in the circumstance that Mr. 
Swancourt had proposed to leave home the night pre- 
vious to her wished-for day. Her father seldom took 
long journeys ; seldom slept from home except perhaps 
on the night following a remote Visitation. Well, she 
would not inquire too curiously into the reason of the 
opportunity, nor did he, as would have been natural, 
proceed to explain it of his own accord. In matters of 
fact there had hitherto been no reserve between them, 
though they were not usually confidential in its full 
sense. But the divergence of their emotions on 
Stephen’s account had produced an estrangement which 
just at present went even to the extent of reticence on 
the most ordinary household topics. 

Elfride was almost unconsciously relieved, persuad- 
ing herself that her father’s reserve on his business 
justified her in secrecy as regarded her own — a secrecy 
which was necessarily a foregone decision with her. 
So anxious is a young conscience to discover a pallia- 
tive, that the ex post facto nature of a reason is of no 
account in excluding it. 

The intervening fortnight was spent by her mostly 
in walking by herself among the shrubs and trees, 
indulging sometimes in sanguine anticipations ; more, 
far more frequently, in misgivings. All her flowers 
seemed dull of hue ; her pets seemed to look wistfully 
into her eyes, as if they no longer stood in the same 
friendly relation to her as formerly. She wore melan- 
choly jewellery, gazed at sunsets, and talked to old men 
and women. It was the first time that she had had 
an inner and private world apart from the visible one 
about her. She wished that her father, instead of 
neglecting her even more than usual, would make some 
advance — just one word; she would then tell all, and 
risk Stephen’s displeasure. Thus brought round to 
the youth again, she saw him in her fancy, standing, 
touching her, his eyes full of sad affection, hopelessly 

1 2 I 


I 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


renouncing his attempt because she had renounced 
hers ; and she could not recede. 

On the Wednesday she was to receive another letter. 
She had resolved to let her father see the arrival of 
this one, be the consequences what they might : the 
dread of losing her lover by this deed of honesty pre- 
vented her acting upon the resolve. Five minutes 
before the postman’s expected arrival she slipped out, 
and down the lane to meet him. She met him immedi- 
ately upon turning a sharp angle, which hid her from 
view in the direction of the vicarage. The man smil- 
ingly handed one missive, and was going on to hand 
another, a circular from some tradesman. 

‘ No,’ she said; ‘ take that on to the house.’ 

‘Why, miss, you are doing what your father has 
done for the last fortnight.’ 

She did not comprehend. 

‘ Why, come to this corner, and take a letter of me 
every morning, all writ in the same handwriting, and 
letting any others for him go on to the house.’ And 
on the postman went. 

No sooner had he turned the corner behind her 
back than she heard her father meet and address the 
man. She had saved her letter by two minutes. Her 
father audibly went through precisely the same perform- 
ance as she had just been guilty of herself. 

This stealthy conduct of his was, to say the least, 
peculiar. 

Given an impulsive inconsequent girl, neglected as 
to her inner life by her only parent, and the following 
forces alive within her ; to determine a resultant : 

First love acted upon by a deadly fear of separation 
from its object : inexperience, guiding onward a frantic 
wish to prevent the above-named issue : misgivings as 
to propriety, met by hope of ultimate exoneration: 
ii?dignation at parental inconsistency in first encour- 
122 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


aging, then forbidding : a chilling sense of disobedience, 
overpowered by a conscientious inability to brook a 
breaking of plighted faith with a man who, in essentials, 
had remained unaltered from the beginning : a blessed 
hope that opposition would turn an erroneous judg- 
ment : a bright faith that things would mend thereby, 
and wind up well. 

Probably the result would, after all, have been nil, 
had not the following few remarks been made one day 
at breakfast. 

Her father was in his old hearty spirits. He smiled 
to himself at stories too bad to tell, and called Elfride 
a little scamp for surreptitiously preserving some blind 
kittens that ought to have been drowned. After this 
expression, she said to him suddenly : 

‘ If Mr. Smith had been already in the family, you 
would not have been made wretched by discovering 
he had poor relations ? ’ 

‘ Do you mean in the family by marriage ? ’ he 
replied inattentively, and continuing to peel his egg. 

The accumulating scarlet told that was her meaning, 
as much as the affirmative reply. 

‘ I should have put up with it, no doubt,’ Mr. 
Swancourt observed. 

‘ So that you would not have been driven into hope- 
less melancholy, but have made the best of him ? ’ 

Elfride’s erratic mind had from her youth upwards 
been constantly in the habit of perplexing her father 
by hypothetical questions, based on absurd conditions. 
The present seemed to be cast so precisely in the 
mould of previous ones that, not being given to syn- 
theses of circumstances, he answered it with customary 
complacency. 

‘ If he were allied to us irretrievably, of course I, 
or any sensible man, should accept conditions that 
could not be altered ; certainly not be hopelessly 
melancholy about it. I don’t believe anything in the 
123 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


world would make me hopelessly melancholy. And 
don’t let anything make you so, either.’ 

£ I won’t, papa,’ she cried, with a serene brightness 
that pleased him. 

Certainly Mr. Swancourt must have been far from 
thinking that the brightness came from an exhilarating 
intention to hold back no longer from the mad action 
she had planned. 

In the evening he drove away towards Stratleigh, 
quite alone. It was an unusual course for him. At 
the door Elfride had been again almost impelled by 
her feelings to pour out all. 

‘ Why are you going to Stratleigh, papa ? ’ she said, 
and looked at him longingly. 

‘ I will tell you to-morrow when I come back,’ he 
said cheerily ; ‘ not before then, Elfride. Thou wilt 
not utter what thou dost not know, and so far will 
I trust thee, gentle Elfride.’ 

She was repressed and hurt. 

‘ I will tell you my errand to Plymouth, too, when 
I come back,’ she murmured. 

He went away. His jocularity made her intention 
seem the lighter, as his indifference made her more 
resolved to do as she liked. 

It was a familiar September sunset, dark-blue frag- 
ments of cloud upon an orange-yellow sky. These 
sunsets used to tempt her to walk towards them, as 
any beautiful thing tempts a near approach. She went 
through the field to the privet hedge, clambered into 
the middle of it, and reclined upon the thick boughs. 
After looking westward for a considerable time, she 
blamed herself for not looking eastward to where 
Stephen was, and turned round. Ultimately her eyes 
fell upon the ground. 

A peculiarity was observable beneath her. A green 
field spread itself on each side of the hedge, one be- 
longing to the glebe, the other being a part of the land 
124 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


attached to the manor-house adjoining. On the vicar- 
age side she saw a little footpath, the distinctive and 
altogether exceptional feature of which consisted in 
its being only about ten yards long; it terminated 
abruptly at each end. 

A footpath, suddenly beginning and suddenly end- 
ing, coming from nowhere and leading nowhere, she 
had never seen before. 

Yes, she had, on second thoughts. She had seen 
exactly such a path trodden in the front of barracks 
by the sentry. 

And this recollection explained the origin of the 
path here. Her father had trodden it by pacing up 
and down, as she had once seen him doing. 

Sitting on the hedge as she sat now, her eyes 
commanded a view of both sides of it. And a few 
minutes later, Elfride looked over to the manor side. 

Here was another sentry path. It was like the 
first in length, and it began and ended exactly opposite 
the beginning and ending of its neighbour, but it was 
thinner, and less distinct. 

Two reasons existed for the difference. This one 
might have been trodden by a similar weight of tread to 
the other, exercised a less number of times ; or it might 
have been walked just as frequently, but by lighter feet. 

Probably a gentleman from Scotland-yard, had he 
been passing at the time, might have considered the 
latter alternative as the more probable. Elfride thought 
otherwise, so far as she thought at all. But her own 
great To-Morrow was now imminent; all thoughts in- 
spired by casual sights of the eye were only allowed to 
exercise themselves in inferior corners of her brain, 
previously to being banished altogether. 

Elfride was at length compelled to reason practically 
upon her undertaking. All her definite perceptions 
thereon, when the emotion accompanying them was 
abstracted, amounted to no more than these : 

I2 5 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


‘ Say an hour and three-quarters to ride to St 
Launce’s. 

‘ Say half an hour at the Falcon to change my 
dress. 

‘ Say two hours waiting for some train and getting to 
Plymouth. 

‘ Say an hour to spare before twelve o’clock. 

‘ Total time from leaving Endelstow till twelve o’clock, 
five hours. 

‘ Therefore I shall have to start at seven.’ 

No surprise or sense of unwontedness entered the 
minds of the servants at her early ride. The monotony 
of life we associate with people of small incomes in 
districts out of the sound of the railway whistle, has 
one exception, which puts into shade the experience of 
dwellers about the great centres of population — that is, 
in travelling. Every journey there is more or less an 
adventure; adventurous hours are necessarily chosen 
for the most commonplace outing. Miss Elfride had 
to leave early — that was all. 

Elfride never went out on horseback but she brought 
home something — something found, or something 
bought. If she trotted to town or village, her burden 
was books. If to hills, woods, or the seashore, it was 
wonderful mosses, abnormal twigs, a handkerchief of 
wet shells or seaweed. 

Once, in muddy weather, when Pansy was walking 
with her down the street of Castle Boterel, on a fair- 
day, a packet in front of her and a packet under her 
arm, an accident befell the packets, and they slipped 
down. On one side of her, three volumes of fiction lay 
kissing the mud ; on the other numerous skeins of poly- 
chromatic wools lay absorbing it. Unpleasant women 
smiled through windows at the mishap, the men all 
looked round, and a boy, who was minding a ginger- 
bread stall whilst the owner had gone to get drunk, 
126 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


laughed loudly. The blue eyes turned to sapphires, 
and the cheeks crimsoned with vexation. 

After that misadventure she set her wits to work, 
and was ingenious enough to invent an arrangement of 
small straps about the saddle, by which a great deal 
could be safely carried thereon, in a small compass. 
Here she now spread out and fastened a plain dark 
walking-dress and a few other trifles of apparel. Worm 
opened the gate for her, and she vanished away. 

One of the brightest mornings of late summer shone 
upon her. The heather was at its purplest, the furze 
at its yellowest, the grasshoppers chirped loud enough 
for birds, the snakes hissed like little engines, and 
Elfride at first felt lively. Sitting at ease upon Pansy, 
in her orthodox riding-habit and nondescript hat, she 
looked what she felt. But the mercury of those days 
had a trick of falling unexpectedly. First, only for one 
minute in ten had she a sense of depression. Then a 
large cloud, that had been hanging in the north like a 
black fleece, came and placed itself between her and 
the sun. It helped on what was already inevitable, and 
she sank into a uniformity of sadness. 

She turned in the saddle and looked back. They 
were now on an open table-land, whose altitude still 
gave her a view of the sea by Endelstow. She looked 
longingly at that spot. 

During this little revulsion of feeling Pansy had 
been still advancing, and Elfride felt it would be absurd 
to turn her little mare’s head the other way. ‘ Still,’ 
she thought, ‘ if I had a mamma at home I would go 
back ! ’ 

And making one of those stealthy movements by 
which women let their hearts juggle with their brains, 
she did put the horse’s head about, as if unconsciously, 
and went at a hand-gallop towards home for more than 
a mile. By this time, from the inveterate habit of 
valuing what we have renounced directly the alternative 
127 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


is chosen, the thought of her forsaken Stephen recalled 
her, and she turned about, and cantered on to St. 
Launce’s again. 

This miserable strife of thought now began to rage 
in all its wildness. Overwrought and trembling, she 
dropped the rein upon Pansy’s shoulders, and vowed 
she would be led whither the horse would take her. 

Pansy slackened her pace to a walk, and walked on 
with her agitated burden for three or four minutes. 
At the expiration of this time they had come to a 
little by-way on the right, leading down a slope to a 
pool of water. The pony stopped, looked towards the 
pool, and then advanced and stooped to drink. 

Elfride looked at her watch and discovered that if 
she were going to reach St. Launce’s early enough to 
change her dress at the Falcon, and get a chance of 
some early train to Plymouth — there were only two 
available — it was necessary to proceed at once. 

She was impatient. It seemed as if Pansy would 
never stop drinking; and the repose of the pool, the 
idle motions of the insects and flies upon it, the placid 
waving of the flags, the leaf-skeletons, like Genoese fili- 
gree, placidly sleeping at the bottom, by their contrast 
with her own turmoil made her impatience greater. 

Pansy did turn at last, and went up the slope again to 
the high-road. The pony came upon it, and stood cross- 
wise, looking up and down. Elfride’s heart throbbed 
erratically, and she thought, * Horses, if left to them- 
selves, make for where they are best fed. Pansy will 
go home.’ 

Pansy turned and walked on towards St. Launce’s 

Pansy at home, during summer, had little but grass 
to live on. After a run to St. Launce’s she always had 
a feed of corn to support her on the return journey. 
Therefore, being now more than half way, she preferred 
St. Launce’s. 

But Elfride did not remember this now. All she 
128 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


cared to recognize was a dreamy fancy that to-day’s rash 
action was not her own. She was disabled by her 
moods, and it seemed indispensable to adhere to the 
programme. So strangely involved are motives that, 
more than by her promise to Stephen, more even 
than by her love, she was forced on by a sense of the 
necessity of keeping faith with herself, as promised in 
the inane vow of ten minutes ago. 

She hesitated no longer. Pansy went, like the steed 
of Adonis, as if she told the steps. Presently the quaint 
gables and jumbled roofs of St. Launce’s were spread 
beneath her, and going down the hill she entered the 
courtyard of the Falcon. Mrs. Buckle, the landlady, 
came to the door to meet her. 

The Swancourts were well known here. The transi- 
tion from equestrian to the ordinary guise of railway 
travellers had been more than once performed by father 
and daughter in this establishment. 

In less than a quarter of an hour Elfride emerged 
from the door in her walking dress, and went to the 
railway. She had not told Mrs. Buckle anything as to 
her intentions, and was supposed to have gone out 
shopping. 

An hour and forty minutes later, and she was in 
Stephen’s arms at the Plymouth station. Not upon 
the platform — in the secret retreat of a deserted 
waiting-room. 

Stephen’s face boded ill. He was pale and de- 
spondent. 

‘ What is the matter ? ’ she asked. 

‘ We cannot be married here to-day, my Elfie ! I 
ought to have known it and stayed here. In my 
ignorance I did not. I have the licence, but it can 
only be used in my parish in London. I only came 
down last night, as you know.’ 

‘ What shall we do ? ’ she said blankly. 

‘There’s only one thing we can do, darling.’ 

129 1 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


What’s that ? ’ 

‘ Go on to London by a train just starting, and be 
married there to-morrow.’ 

‘ Passengers for the 1 1.5 up-train take their seats ! ’ 
said a guard’s voice on the platform 

‘ Will you go, Elfride ? ’ 

‘ I will.’ 

In three minutes the train had moved off, bearing 
away with it Stephen and Elfride. 


XII 

‘Adieu! she cries, and waved her lily hand.’ 

The few tattered clouds of the morning enlarged and 
united, the sun withdrew behind them to emerge no 
more that day, and the evening drew to a close in drifts 
of rain. The water-drops beat like duck shot against 
the window of the railway-carriage containing Stephen 
and Elfride. 

The journey from Plymouth to Paddington, by even 
the most headlong express, allows quite enough leisure 
for passion of any sort to cool. Elfride’s excitement 
had passed off, and she sat in a kind of stupor during 
the latter half of the journey. She was aroused by the 
clanging of the maze of rails over which they traced 
their way at the entrance to the station. 

‘ Is this London ? ’ she said. 

‘ Yes, darling,’ said Stephen in a tone of assurance 
he was far from feeling. To him, no less than to her, 
the reality so greatly differed from the prefiguring. 

She peered out as well as the window, beaded with 
drops, would allow her, and saw only the lamps, which 
had just been lit, blinking in the wet atmosphere, and 
rows of hideous zinc chimney-pipes in dim relief against 
the sky. She writhed uneasily, as when a thought is 
I 3 I 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


swelling in the mind which must cause much pain at 
its deliverance in words. Elfride had known no more 
about the stings of evil report than the native wild-fowl 
knew of the effects of Crusoe’s first shot. Now she 
saw a little further, and a little further still. 

The train stopped. Stephen relinquished the soft 
hand he had held all the day, and proceeded to assist 
her on to the platform. 

This act of alighting upon strange ground seemed 
all that was wanted to complete a resolution within 
her. 

She looked at her betrothed with despairing eyes. 

‘ O Stephen,’ she exclaimed, ‘ I am so miserable ! I 
must go home again — I must — I must ! Forgive my 
wretched vacillation. I don’t like it here — nor myself 
— nor you ! ’ 

Stephen looked bewildered, and did not speak. 

‘ Will you allow me to go home ? ’ she implored. 
* I won’t trouble you to go with me. I will not be any 
weight upon you; only say you will agree to my re- 
turning ; that you will not hate me for it, Stephen ! 
It is better that I should return again; indeed it is, 
Stephen.’ 

‘ But we can’t return now,’ he said in a deprecatory 
tone. 

‘ I must ! I will ! ’ 

‘ How ? When do you want to go ? ’ 

‘ Now. Can we go at once ? ’ 

The lad looked hopelessly along the platform. 

‘ If you must go, and think it wrong to remain, 
dearest,’ said he sadly, ‘ you shall. You shall do what- 
ever you like, my Elfride. But would you in reality 
rather go now than stay till to-morrow, and go as my 
wife?’ 

‘ Yes, yes — much — anything to go now. I must ; I 
must ! ’ she cried. 

‘ We ought to have done one of two things,’ he 
132 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


answered gloomily. ‘ Never to have started, or not to 
have returned without being married. I don’t like to 
say it, Elfride — indeed I don’t; but you must be told 
this, that going back unmarried may compromise your 
good name in the eyes of people who may hear of it.’ 

* They will not ; and I must go.’ 

‘ O Elfride ! I am to blame for bringing you away.’ 

‘Not at all. I am the elder.’ 

‘ By a month ; and what’s that ? But never mind 
that now.’ He looked around. ‘ Is there a train for 
Plymouth to-night ? ’ he inquired of a guard. The 
guard passed on and did not speak. 

‘ Is there a train for Plymouth to-night ? ’ said Elfride 
to another. 

‘Yes, miss; the 8.10 — leaves in ten minutes. You 
have come to the wrong platform ; it is the other side. 
Change at Bristol into the night mail. Down that stain 
case, and under the line.’ 

They ran down the staircase — Elfride first — to the 
booking-office, and into a carriage with an official stand- 
ing beside the door. ‘ Show your tickets, please.’ They 
are locked in — men about the platform accelerate their 
velocities till they fly up and down like shuttles in a 
loom — a whistle — the waving of a flag — a human cry — 
a steam groan — and away they go to Plymouth again, 
just catching these words as they glide off : 

‘ Those two youngsters had a near run for it, and no 
mistake ! ’ 

Elfride found her breath. 

‘ And have you come too, Stephen ? Why did you ? ’ 

‘ I shall not leave you till I see you safe at St. 
Launce’s. Do not think worse of me than I am, 
Elfride.’ 

And then they rattled along through the night, back 
again by the way they had come. The weather cleared, 
and the stars shone in upon them. Their two or three 
fellow-passengers sat for most of the time with closed 
133 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


eyes. Stephen sometimes slept ; Elfride alone was 
wakeful and palpitating hour after hour. 

The day began to break, and revealed that they were 
by the sea. Red rocks overhung them, and, receding 
into distance, grew livid in the blue grey atmosphere. 
The sun rose, and sent penetrating shafts of light in 
upon their weary faces. Another hour, and the world 
began to be busy. They waited yet a little, and the 
train slackened its speed in view of the platform at 
St. Launce’s. 

She shivered, and mused sadly. 

‘ I did not see all the consequences/ she said. 
‘ Appearances are wofully against me. If anybody finds 
me out, I am, I suppose, disgraced.’ 

‘ Then appearances will speak falsely ; and how can 
that matter, even if they do ? I shall be your husband 
sooner or later, for certain, and so prove your purity.’ 

‘ Stephen, once in London I ought to have married 
you,’ she said firmly. ‘ It was my only safe defence. I 
see more things now than I did yesterday. My only 
remaining chance is not to be discovered ; and that we 
must fight for most desperately.’ 

They stepped out. Elfride pulled a thick veil over 
her face. 

A woman with red and scaly eyelids and glistening 
eyes was sitting on a bench just inside the office-door. 
She fixed her eyes upon Elfride with an expression 
whose force it was impossible to doubt, but the meaning 
of which was not clear ; then upon the carriage they had 
left. She seemed to read a sinister story in the scene. 

Elfride shrank back, and turned the other way. 

‘ Who is that woman ? ’ said Stephen. ‘ She looked 
hard at you.’ 

‘ Mrs. Jethway — a widow, and mother of that young 
man whose tomb we sat on the other night. Stephen, 
she is my enemy. Would that God had had mercy 
enough upon me to have hidden this from her l ’ 

T 34 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


* Do not talk so hopelessly/ he remonstrated. ‘ I 
don’t think she recognized us.’ 

‘ I pray that she did not.’ 

He put on a more vigorous mood. 

‘ Now, we will go and get some breakfast.’ 

‘No, no ! ’ she begged. ‘ I cannot eat. I must get 
back to Endelstow.’ 

Elfride was as if she had grown years older than 
Stephen now. 

‘ But you have had nothing since last night but that 
cup of tea at Bristol.’ 

‘ I can’t eat, Stephen.’ 

‘ Wine and biscuit ? ’ 

‘No.’ 

‘ Nor tea, nor coffee ? ’ 

‘No.’ 

‘ A glass of water ? ’ 

‘No. I want something that makes people strong 
and energetic for the present, that borrows the strength 
of to-morrow for use to-day — leaving to-morrow without 
any at all for that matter ; or even that would take all 
life away to-morrow, so long as it enabled me to get 
home again now. Brandy, that’s what I want. That 
woman’s eyes have eaten my heart away ! ’ 

‘ You are wild ; and you grieve me, darling. Must 
it be brandy ? ’ 

* Yes, if you please.’ 

‘ How much ? ’ 

‘ I don’t know. I have never drunk more than a 
teaspoonful at once. All I know is that I want it. 
Don’t get it at the Falcon.’ 

He left her in the fields, and went to the nearest 
inn in that direction. Presently he returned with a 
small flask nearly full, and some slices of bread-and- 
butter, thin as wafers, in a paper-bag. Elfride took a 
sip or two. 

‘ It goes into my eyes,’ she said wearily. ‘ I can’t 

135 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


take any more. Yes, I will; I will close my eyes. 
Ah, it goes to them by an inside route. I don’t want 
it ; throw it away.’ 

However, she could eat, and did eat. Her chief 
attention was concentrated upon how to get the horse 
from the Falcon stables without suspicion. Stephen 
was not allowed to accompany her into the town. 
She acted now upon conclusions reached without any 
aid from him : his power over her seemed to have 
departed. 

‘ You had better not be seen with me, even here 
where I am so little known. We have begun stealthily 
as thieves, and we must end stealthily as thieves, at 
all hazards. Until papa has been told by me myself, 
a discovery would be terrible.’ 

Walking and gloomily talking thus they waited till 
nearly nine o’clock, at which time Elfride thought 
she might call at the Falcon without creating much 
surprise. Behind the railway-station was the river, 
spanned by an old Tudor bridge, whence the road 
diverged in two directions, one skirting the suburbs 
of the town, and winding round again into the high- 
road to Endelstow. Beside this road Stephen sat, and 
awaited her return from the Falcon. 

He sat as one sitting for a portrait, motionless, 
watching the chequered lights and shades on the tree- 
trunks, the children playing opposite the school pre- 
vious to entering for the morning lesson, the reapers 
in a field afar off. The certainty of possession had not 
come, and there was nothing to mitigate the youth’s 
gloom, that increased with the thought of the parting 
now so near. 

At length she came trotting round to him, in 
appearance much as on the romantic morning of their 
visit to the cliff, but shorn of the radiance which 
glistened about her then. However, her compara- 
tive immunity from further risk and trouble had con- 
136 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


siderably composed her. Elfride’s capacity for being 
wounded was only surpassed by her capacity for heal- 
ing, which rightly or wrongly is by some considered 
an index of transientness of feeling in general. 

‘ Elfride, what did they say at the Falcon ? ’ 

* Nothing. Nobody seemed curious about me. 
They knew I went to Plymouth, and I have stayed 
there a night now and then with Miss Bicknell. I 
rather calculated upon that.’ 

And now parting arose like a death to these chil- 
dren, for it was imperative that she should start at 
once. Stephen walked beside her for nearly a mile. 
During the walk he said sadly : 

‘ Elfride, four-and-twenty hours have passed, and 
the thing is not done.’ 

‘ But you have insured that it shall be done.’ 

‘ How have I ? ’ 

‘ O Stephen, you ask how ! Do you think I could 
marry another man on earth after having gone thus 
far with you? Have I not shown beyond possibility 
of doubt that I can be nobody else’s ? Have I not 
irretrievably committed myself? — pride has stood for 
nothing in the face of my great love. You misunder- 
stood my turning back, and I cannot explain it. It 
was wrong to go with you at all ; and though it would 
have been worse to go further, it would have been 
better policy, perhaps. Be assured of this, that when- 
ever you have a home for me — however poor and 
humble — and come and claim me, I am ready? She 
added bitterly, * When my father knows of this day’s 
work, he may be only too glad to let me go? 

‘ Perhaps he may, then, insist upon our marriage 
at once ! ’ Stephen answered, seeing a ray of hope in 
the very focus of her remorse. * I hope he may, even 
if we had still to part till I am ready for you, as we 
intended? 

Elfride did not reply. 


JC 


137 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


‘You don’t seem the same woman, Elfie, that yoa 
were yesterday.’ 

‘ Nor am I. But good-bye. Go back now.’ And 
she reined the horse for parting. ‘ O Stephen,’ she 
cried, ‘ I feel so weak ! I don’t know how to meet 
him. Cannot you, after all, come back with me ? ’ 

‘ Shall I come ? ’ 

Elfride paused to think. 

‘ No ; it will not do. It is my utter foolishness 
that makes me say such words. But he will send 
for you.’ 

‘ Say to him,’ continued Stephen, ‘ that we did this 
in the absolute despair of our minds. Tell him we 
don’t wish him to favour us — only to deal justly with 
us. If he says, marry now, so much the better. If 
not, say that all may be put right by his promise to 
allow me to have you when I am good enough for 
you — which may be soon. Say I have nothing to 
offer him in exchange for his treasure — the more sorry 
I ; but all the love, and all the life, and all the labour 
of an honest man shall be yours. As to when this 
had better be told, I leave you to judge.’ 

His words made her cheerful enough to toy with her 
position. 

‘ And if ill report should come, Stephen,’ she said 
smiling, ‘why, the orange-tree must save me, as it saved 
virgins in St. George’s time from the poisonous breath 
of the dragon. There, forgive me for forwardness : I 
am going.’ 

Then the boy and girl beguiled themselves with 
words of half-parting only. 

‘ Own wifie, God bless you till we meet again ! ’ 

‘ Till we meet again, good-bye ! ’ 

And the pony went on, and she spoke to him no 
more. He saw her figure diminish and her blue veil 
grow gray — saw it with the agonizing sensations of a 
slow death. 


138 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


After thus parting from a man than whom she had 
known none greater as yet, Elfride rode rapidly onwards, 
a tear being occasionally shaken from her eyes into the 
road. What yesterday had seemed so desirable, so 
promising, even trifling, had now acquired the com- 
plexion of a tragedy. 

She saw the rocks and sea in the neighbourhood of 
Endelstow, and heaved a sigh of relief. 

When she passed a field behind the vicarage she 
heard the voices of Unity and William Worm. They 
were hanging a carpet upon a line. Unity was uttering a 
sentence that concluded with ‘ when Miss Elfride comes.’ 

* When d’ye expect her ? ’ 

* Not till evening now. She’s safe enough at Miss 
Bicknell’s, bless ye.’ 

Elfride went round to the door. She did not knock 
or ring ; and seeing nobody to take the horse, Elfride 
led her round to the yard, slipped off the bridle and 
saddle, drove her towards the paddock, and turned her 
in. Then Elfride crept indoors, and looked into all the 
ground-floor rooms. Her father was not there. 

On the mantelpiece of the drawing-room stood a 
letter addressed to her in his handwriting. She took it 
and read it as she went upstairs to change her habit. 

‘ Stratleigh, Thursday. 

* Dear Elfride, — On second thoughts I will not 

return to-day, but only come as far as Wadcombe. 
I shall be at home by to-morrow afternoon, and bring 
a friend with me. — Yours, in haste, C. S.’ 

After making a quick toilet she felt more revived, 
though still suffering from a headache. On going out 
of the door she met Unity at the top of the stair. 

‘ O Miss Elfride ! I said to myself ’tis her sperrit ! 
We didn’t dream o’ you not coming home last night. 
You didn’t say anything about staying.’ 

139 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


‘ I intended to come home the same evening, but 
altered my plan. I wished I hadn’t afterwards. Papa 
will be angry, I suppose ? ’ 

‘ Better not tell him, miss/ said Unity. 

‘ I do fear to/ she murmured. ‘ Unity, would you 
just begin telling him when he comes home ? ’ 

‘ What ! and get you into trouble ? ’ 

‘ I deserve it/ 

* No, indeed, I won’t/ said Unity. ‘ It is not such 
a mighty matter, Miss Elfride. I says to myself, 
master’s taking a hollerday, and because he’s not been 

kind lately to Miss Elfride, she ’ 

‘ Is imitating him. Well, do as you like. And will 
you now bring me some luncheon ? ’ 

After satisfying an appetite which the 'fresh marine 
air had given her in its victory over an agitated mind, 
she put on her hat and went to the garden and summer- 
house. She sat down, and leant with her head in a 
corner. Here she fell asleep. 

Half-awake, she hurriedly looked at the time. She 
had been there three hours. At the same moment she 
heard the outer gate swing together, and wheels sweep 
round the entrance; some prior noise from the same 
source having probably been the cause of her awaking. 
Next her father’s voice was heard calling to Worm. 

Elfride passed along a walk towards the house 
behind a belt of shrubs. She heard a tongue holding 
converse with her father, which was not that of either 
of the servants. Her father and the stranger were 
laughing together. Then there was a rustling of silk, 
and Mr. Swancourt and his companion, or companions, 
to all seeming entered the door of the house, for 
nothing more of them was audible. Elfride had turned 
back to meditate on what friends these could be, when 
she heard footsteps, and her father exclaiming behind 
her : 

‘ O Elfride, here you are ! I hope you got on well ? ’ 
140 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 

Elfride’s heart smote her, and she did not speak. 

‘ Come back to the summer-house a minute,’ con- 
tinued Mr. Swancourt ; ‘ I have to tell you of that I 
promised to.’ 

They entered the summer-house, and stood leaning- 
over the knotty woodwork of the balustrade. 

‘ Now,’ said her father radiantly, ‘guess what I have 
to say.’ He seemed to be regarding his own existence 
so intently, that he took no interest in nor even saw 
the complexion of hers. 

* I cannot, papa,’ she said sadly. 

‘ Try, dear.’ 

‘ I would rather not, indeed.’ 

* You are tired. You look worn. The ride was too 
much for you. Well, this is what I went away for. 
I went to be married ! ’ 

‘ Married ! ’ she faltered, and could hardly check an 
involuntary ‘ So did I.’ A moment after and her re- 
solve to confess perished like a bubble. 

‘Yes; to whom do you think? Mrs. Troyton, the 
new owner of the estate over the hedge, and of the old 
manor-house. It was only finally settled between us 
when I went to Stratleigh a few days ago.’ He lowered 
his voice to a sly tone of merriment. ‘ Now, as to 
your stepmother, you’ll find she is not much to look 
at, though a good deal to listen to. She is twenty 
years older than myself, for one thing.’ 

‘ You forget that I know her. She called here 
once, after we had been, and found her away from 
home.’ 

‘ Of course, of course. Well, whatever her looks 
are, she’s as excellent a woman as ever breathed. She 
has had lately left her as absolute property three thou- 
sand five hundred a year, besides the devise of this 
estate — and, by the way, a large legacy came to her in 
satisfaction of dower, as it is called.’ 

‘ Three thousand five hundred a year ! ’ 

T4 T 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


‘ And a large — well, a fair-sized — mansion in town, 
and a pedigree as long as my walking-stick ; though 
that bears evidence of being rather a raked-up affair — 
done since the family got rich — people do those things 
now as they build ruins on maiden estates and cast 
antiques at Birmingham.’ 

Elfride merely listened and said nothing. 

He continued more quietly and impressively. ‘ Yes, 
Elfride, she is wealthy in comparison with us, though 
with few connections. However, she will introduce 
you to the world a little. We are going to exchange 
her house in Baker Street for one at Kensington, for 
your sake. Everybody is going there - now, she says. 
At Easters we shall fly to town for the usual three 
months — I shall have a curate of course by that time. 
Elfride, I am past love, you know, and I honestly con- 
fess that I married her for your sake. Why a woman 
of her standing should have thrown herself away upon 
me, God knows. But I suppose her age and plainness 
were too pronounced for a town man. With your good 
looks, if you now play your cards well, you may marry 
anybody. Of course, a little contrivance will be neces- 
sary; but there’s nothing to stand between you and a 
husband with a title, that I can see. Lady Luxellian 
was only a squire’s daughter. Now, don’t you see how 
foolish the old fancy was ? But come, she is indoors 
waiting to see you. It is as good as a play, too,’ con- 
tinued the vicar, as they walked towards the house. 
‘ I courted her through the privet hedge yonder : not 
entirely, you know, but we used to walk there of an 
evening — nearly every evening at last. But I needn’t 
tell you details now; everything was terribly matter-of- 
fact, I assure you. At last, that day I saw her at 
Stratleigh, we determined to settle it off-hand.’ 

‘ And you never said a word to me,’ replied Elfride, 
not reproachfully either in tone or thought. Indeed, 
her feeling was the very reverse of reproachful. She 
142 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


felt relieved and even thankful. Where confidence had 
not been given, how could confidence be expected ? 

Her father mistook her dispassionateness for a veil 
of politeness over a sense of ill-usage. ‘ I am not 
altogether to blame,’ he said. ‘ There were two or 
three reasons for secrecy. One was the recent death 
of her relative the testator, though that did not apply to 
you. But remember, Elfride,’ he continued in a stifTer 
tone, ‘you had mixed yourself up so foolishly with 
those low people, the Smiths — and it was just, too, 
when Mrs. Troy ton and myself were beginning to 
understand each other — that I resolved to say nothing 
even to you. How did I know how far you had gone 
with them and their son ? You might have made a 
point of taking tea with them every day, for all that 
I knew.’ 

Elfride swallowed her feelings as she best could, and 
languidly though flatly asked a question. 

‘ Did you kiss Mrs. Troyton on the lawn about three 
weeks ago ? That evening I came into the study and 
found you had just had candles in ? ’ 

Mr. Swancourt looked rather red and abashed, as 
middle-aged lovers are apt to do when caught in the 
tricks of younger ones. 

‘Well, yes; I think I did,’ he stammered; ‘just to 
please her, you know.’ And then recovering himself 
he laughed heartily. 

‘ And was this what your Horatian quotation referred 
to?’ 

‘ It was, Elfride.’ 

They stepped into the drawing-room from the ver- 
andah. At that moment Mrs. Swancourt came down- 
stairs, and entered the same room by the door. 

‘ Here, Charlotte, is my little Elfride,’ said Mr. 
Swancourt, with the increased affection of tone often 
adopted towards relations when newly produced. 

Poor Elfride, not knowing what to do, did nothing 
i43 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 

at all ; but stood receptive of all that came to her by 
sight, hearing, and touch. 

Mrs. Swancourt moved forward, took her step- 
daughter’s hand, then kissed her. 

‘ Ah, darling ! ’ she exclaimed good-humouredly, * you 
didn’t think when you showed a strange old woman over 
the conservatory a month or two ago, and explained the 
flowers to her so prettily, that she would so soon be 
here in new colours. Nor did she, I am sure.’ 

The new mother had been truthfully enough described 
by Mr. Swancourt. She was not physically attractive. 
She was dark — very dark — in complexion, portly in 
figure, and with a plentiful residuum of hair in the 
proportion of half a dozen white ones to half a dozen 
black ones, though the latter were black indeed. No 
further observed, she was not a woman to like. But 
there was more to see. To the most superficial critic 
it was apparent that she made no attempt to disguise 
her age. She looked sixty at the first glance, and close 
acquaintanceship never proved her older. 

Another and still more winning trait was one attach- 
ing to the corners of her mouth. Before she made a 
remark these often twitched gently : not backwards and 
forwards, the index of nervousness ; not down upon the 
jaw, the sign of determination ; but palpably upwards, 
in precisely the curve adopted to represent mirth in the 
broad caricatures of schoolboys. Only this element in 
her face was expressive of anything within the woman, 
but it was unmistakable. It expressed humour subjective 
as well as objective — which could survey the peculiarities 
of self in as whimsical a light as those of other people. 

This is not all of Mrs. Swancourt. She had held 
out to Elfride hands whose fingers were literally stiff 
with rings, signis auroque rigentes , like Helen’s robe. 
These rows of rings were not worn in vanity apparently. 
They were mostly antique and dull, though a few were 
the reverse. 


144 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


RIGHT HAND. 

i st. Plainly set oval onyx, representing a devil’s 
head. 2nd. Green jasper intaglio, with red veins. 3rd. 
Entirely gold, bearing figure of a hideous griffin. 4th. 
A sea-green monster diamond, with small diamonds 
round it. 5 th. Antique cornelian intaglio of dancing 
figure of a satyr. 6 th. An angular band chased with 
dragons’ heads. 7th. A facetted carbuncle accompanied 
by ten little twinkling emeralds ; &c. &c. 

LEFT HAND. 

1st. A reddish-yellow toadstone. 2nd. A heavy ring 
enamelled in colours, and bearing a jacynth. 3rd. An 
amethystine sapphire. 4th. A polished ruby, sur- 
rounded by diamonds. 5 th. The engraved ring of an 
abbess. 6th. A gloomy intaglio ; &c. &c. 

Beyond this rather quaint array of stone and metal 
Mrs. Swancourt wore no ornament whatever. 

Elfride had been favourably impressed with Mrs. 
Troy ton at their meeting about two months earlier; 
but to be pleased with a woman as a momentary ac- 
quaintance was different from being taken with her as 
a stepmother. However, the suspension of feeling was 
but for a moment. Elfride decided to like her still. 

Mrs. Swancourt was a woman of the world as to 
knowledge, the reverse as to action, as her marriage 
suggested. Elfride and the lady were soon inextricably 
involved in conversation, and Mr. Swancourt left them 
to themselves. 

‘ And what do you find to do with yourself here ? ’ 
Mrs. Swancourt said, after a few remarks about the 
wedding. ‘ You ride, I know/ 

* Yes, I ride. But not much, because papa doesn’t 
like my going alone.’ 

‘ You must have somebody to look after you.’ 

145 K 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


‘ And I read, and write a little.’ 

‘You should write a novel. The regular resource 
of people who don’t go enough into the world to live 
a novel is to write one.’ 

‘ I have done it,’ said Elfride, looking dubiously at 
Mrs. Swancourt, as if in doubt whether she would meet 
with ridicule there. 

‘That’s right. Now, then, what is it about, dear?’ 

‘ About — well, it is a romance of the Middle Ages.’ 

‘ Knowing nothing of the present age, which every- 
body knows about, for safety you chose an age known 
neither to you nor other people. That’s it, eh? No, 
no; I don’t mean it, dear.’ 

‘ Well, I have had some opportunities of studying 
mediaeval art and manners in the library and private 
museum at Endelstow House, and I thought I should 
like to try my hand upon a fiction. I know the time 
for these tales is past; but I was interested in it, very 
much interested.’ 

‘ When is it to appear ? ’ 

‘ Oh, never, I suppose.’ 

‘ Nonsense, my dear girl. Publish it, by all means. 
All ladies do that sort of thing now ; not for profit, you 
know, but as a guarantee of mental respectability to 
their future husbands.’ 

‘ An excellent idea of us ladies.’ 

‘ Though I am afraid it rather resembles the melan- 
choly ruse of throwing loaves over castle-walls at be- 
siegers, and suggests desperation rather than plenty 
inside.’ 

‘ Did you ever try it ? ’ 

‘ No ; I was too far gone even for that.’ 

‘ Papa says no publisher will take my book.’ 

‘That remains to be proved. I’ll give my word, 
my dear, that by this time next year it shall be printed.’ 

* Will you, indeed ? ’ said Elfride, partially brighten- 
ing with pleasure, though she was sad enough in her 
146 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


depths. * I thought brains were the indispensable, even 
if the only, qualification for admission to the republic 
of letters. A mere commonplace creature like me will 
soon be turned out again.’ 

* Oh no ; once you are there you’ll be like a drop 
of water in a piece of rock-crystal — your medium will 
dignify your commonness.’ 

‘ It will be a great satisfaction,’ Elfride murmured, 
and thought of Stephen, and wished she could make a 
great fortune by writing romances, and marry him and 
live happily. 

‘ And then we’ll go to London, and then to Paris,’ 
said Mrs. Swancourt. ‘ I have been talking to your 
father about it. But we have first to move into the 
manor-house, and we think of staying at Torquay 
whilst that is going on. Meanwhile, instead of going 
on a honeymoon scamper by ourselves, we have come 
home to fetch you, and go all together to Bath for two 
or three weeks.’ 

Elfride assented pleasantly, even gladly ; but she 
saw that, by this marriage, her father and herself had 
ceased for ever to be the close relations they had been 
up to a few weeks ago. It was impossible now to 
tell him the tale of her wild elopement with Stephen 
Smith. 

He was still snugly housed in her heart. His 
absence had regained for him much of that aureola of 
saintship which had been nearly abstracted during her 
reproachful mood on that miserable journey from 
London. Rapture is often cooled by contact with its 
cause, especially if under awkward conditions. And 
that last experience with Stephen had done anything 
but make him shine in her eyes. His very kindness 
in letting her return was his offence. Elfride had her 
sex’s love of sheer force in a man, however ill-directed ; 
and at that critical juncture in London Stephen’s only 
chance of retaining the ascendancy over her that his 
147 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


face and not his parts had acquired for him, would 
have been by doing what, for one thing, he was too 
youthful to undertake — that was, dragging her by the 
wrist to the rails of some altar, and peremptorily 
marrying her. Decisive action is seen by appreciative 
minds to be frequently objectless, and sometimes fatal ; 
but decision, however suicidal, has more charm for a 
woman than the most unequivocal Fabian success. 

However, some of the unpleasant accessories of that 
occasion were now out of sight again, and Stephen had 
resumed not a few of his fancy colours. 


XIII 


‘He set in order many proverbs.’ 

It is London in October — two months further on in 
the story. 

Bede’s Inn has this peculiarity, that it faces, receives 
from, and discharges into a bustling thoroughfare speak- 
ing only of wealth and respectability, whilst its postern 
abuts on as crowded and poverty-stricken a network of 
alleys as are to be found anywhere in the metropolis. 
The moral consequences are, first, that those who occupy 
chambers in the Inn may see a great deal of shirt- 
less humanity’s habits and enjoyments without doing 
more than look down from a back window ; and second 
they may hear wholesome though unpleasant social re- 
minders through the medium of a harsh voice, an 
unequal footstep, the echo of a blow or a fall, which 
originates in the person of some drunkard or wife- 
beater, as he crosses and interferes with the quiet of 
the square. Characters of this kind frequently pass 
through the Inn from a little foxhole of an alley at the 
back, but they never loiter there. 

It is hardly necessary to state that all the sights and 
movements proper to the Inn are most orderly. On 
the fine October evening on which we follow Stephen 
149 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


Smith to this place, a placid porter is sitting on a stool 
under a sycamore-tree in the midst, with a little cane 
in his hand. We notice the thick coat of soot upon 
the branches, hanging underneath them in flakes, as in 
a chimney. The blackness of these boughs does not at 
present improve the tree — nearly forsaken by its leaves 
as it is — but in the spring their green fresh beauty is 
made doubly beautiful by the contrast. Within the 
railings is a flower-garden of respectable dahlias and 
chrysanthemums, where a man is sweeping the leaves 
from the grass. 

Stephen selects a doorway, and ascends an old 
though wide wooden staircase, with moulded balusters 
and handrail, which in a country manor-house would 
be considered a noteworthy specimen of Renaissance 
workmanship. He reaches a door on the first floor, 
over which is painted, in black letters, ‘ Mr. Henry 
Knight ’ — ‘ Barrister-at-law ’ being understood but not 
expressed. The wall is thick, and there is a door at 
its outer and inner face. The outer one happens to be 
ajar : Stephen goes to the other, and taps. 

‘ Come in ! 1 from distant penetralia. 

First was a small anteroom, divided from the inner 
apartment by a wainscoted archway two or three yards 
wide. Across this archway hung a pair of dark-green 
curtains, making a mystery of all within the arch except 
the spasmodic scratching of a quill pen. Here was 
grouped a chaotic assemblage of articles — mainly old 
framed prints and paintings — leaning edgewise against 
the wall, like roofing slates in a builder’s yard. All the 
books visible here were folios too big to be stolen — some 
lying on a heavy oak table in one corner, some on the 
floor among the pictures, the whole intermingled with 
old coats, hats, umbrellas, and walking-sticks. 

Stephen pushed aside the curtain, and before him sat 
a man writing away as if his life depended upon it — 
which it did. 

* 5 ° 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


A man of thirty in a speckled coat, with dark brown 
hair, curly beard, and crisp moustache : the latter 
running into the beard on each side of the mouth, and, 
as usual, hiding the real expression of that organ under 
a chronic aspect of impassivity. 

* Ah, my dear fellow, I knew ’twas you,’ said Knight, 
looking up with a smile, and holding out his hand. 

Knight’s mouth and eyes came to view now. Both 
features were good, and had the peculiarity of appearing 
younger and fresher than the brow and face they belonged 
to, which were getting sicklied o’er by the unmistakable 
pale cast. The mouth had not quite relinquished rotun- 
dity of curve for the firm angularities of middle life ; and 
the eyes, though keen, permeated rather than penetrated : 
what they had lost of their boy-time brightness by a 
dozen years of hard reading lending a quietness to their 
gaze which suited them well. 

A lady would have said there was a smell of tobacco 
in the room : a man that there was not. 

Knight did not rise. He looked at a timepiece on 
the mantelshelf, then turned again to his letters, point- 
ing to a chair. 

‘ Well, I am glad you have come. I only returned 
to town yesterday; now, don’t speak, Stephen, for ten 
minutes ; I have just that time to the late post. At the 
eleventh minute, I’m your man.’ 

Stephen sat down as if this kind of reception was by 
no means new, and away went Knight’s pen, beating up 
and down like a ship in a storm. 

Cicero called the library the soul of the house ; here 
the house was all soul. Portions of the floor, and half 
the wall-space, were taken up by book-shelves ordinary 
and extraordinary; the remaining parts, together with 
brackets, side - tables, &c., being occupied by casts, 
statuettes, medallions, and plaques of various descrip- 
tions, picked up by the owner in his wanderings through 
France and Italy. 

I 5 I 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


One stream only of evening sunlight came into the 
room from a window quite in the corner, overlooking a 
court. An aquarium stood in the window. It was a 
dull parallelopipedon enough for living creatures at 
most hours of the day ; but for a few minutes in the 
evening, as now, an errant, kindly ray lighted up and 
warmed the little world therein, when the many-coloured 
zoophytes opened and put forth their arms, the weeds 
acquired a rich transparency, the shells gleamed of a 
more golden yellow, and the timid community expressed 
gladness more plainly than in words. 

Within the prescribed ten minutes Knight flung 
down his pen, rang for the boy to take the letters to the 
post, and at the closing of the door exclaimed, ‘ There ; 
thank God, that’s done. Now, Stephen, pull your chair 
round, and tell me what you have been doing all this 
time. Have you kept up your Greek ? ’ 

‘No.’ 

‘ How’s that ? ’ 

‘ I haven’t enough spare time.’ 

* That’s nonsense.’ 

‘ Well, I have done a great many things, if not that. 
And I have done one extraordinary thing.’ 

Knight turned full upon Stephen. * Ah-ha ! Now, 
then, let me look into your face, put two and two to- 
gether, and make a shrewd guess.’ 

Stephen changed to a redder colour. 

‘ Why, Smith,’ said Knight, after holding him 
rigidly by the shoulders, and keenly scrutinising his 
countenance for a minute in silence, * you have fallen 
in love.’ 

‘ Well — the fact is 

‘ Now, out with it.’ But seeing that Stephen looked 
rather distressed, he changed to a kindly tone. ‘ Now 
Smith, my lad, you know me well enough by this time, 
or you ought to ; and you know very well that if you 
choose to give me a detailed account of the phenomenon 
152 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


within you, I shall listen ; if you don’t, I am the last 
man in the world to care to hear it.’ 

‘ I’ll tell this much : I have fallen in love, and I want 
to be married .’ 

Knight looked ominous as this passed Stephen’s 
lips. 

‘ Don’t judge me before you have heard more,’ 
cried Stephen anxiously, seeing the change in his 
friend’s countenance. 

‘ I don’t judge. Does your mother know about it ? ’ 

‘ Nothing definite.’ 

‘ Father ? ’ 

‘ No. But I’ll tell you. The young person ’ 

‘ Come, that’s dreadfully ungallant. But perhaps 
I understand the frame of mind a little, so go on. 
Your sweetheart ’ 

‘ She is rather higher in the world than I am.’ 

‘ As it should be.’ 

‘ And her father won’t hear of it, as I now stand. 

‘Not an uncommon case.’ 

‘ And now comes what I want your advice upon. 
Something has happened at her house which makes it 
out of the question for us to ask her father again now. 
So we are keeping silent. In the meantime an architect 
in India has just written to Mr. Hewby to ask whether 
he can find for him a young assistant willing to go 
over to Bombay to prepare drawings for work formerly 
done by the engineers. The salary he offers is 350 
rupees a month, or about ^35. Hewby has mentioned 
it to me, and I have been to Dr. Wray, who says I 
shall acclimatise without much illness. Now, would 
you go ? ’ 

« You mean to say, because it is a possible road to 
the young lady.’ 

‘ Yes ; I was thinking I could go over and make a 
little money, and then come back and ask for her. I 
have the option of practising for myself after a year.’ 

L 153 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


‘ Would she be staunch ? ’ 

* Oh yes ! For ever — to the end of her life ! ’ 

‘ How do you know ? ’ 

‘ Why, how do people know ? Of course, she will.’ 

Knight leant back in his chair. ‘ Now, though I 
know her thoroughly as she exists in your heart, 
Stephen, I don’t know her in the flesh. All I want 
to ask is, is this idea of going to India based entirely 
upon a belief in her fidelity ? ’ 

1 Yes ; I should not go if it were not for her/ 

‘ Well, Stephen, you have put me in rather an 
awkward position. If I give my true sentiments, I 
shall hurt your feelings ; if I don’t, I shall hurt my 
own judgment. And remember, I don’t know much 
about women.’ 

‘ But you have had attachments, although you tell 
me very little about them.’ 

‘ And I only hope you’ll continue to prosper till I 
tell you more.’ 

Stephen winced at this rap. ‘ I have never formed 
a deep attachment,’ continued Knight. ‘ I never have 
found a woman worth it. Nor have I been once 
engaged to be married.’ 

‘ You write as if you had been engaged a hundred 
times, if I may be allowed to say so,’ said Stephen in 
an injured tone. 

‘ Yes, that may be. But, my dear Stephen, it is only 
those who half know a thing that write about it. Those 
who know it thoroughly don’t take the trouble. All I 
know about women, or men either, is a mass of generali- 
ties. I plod along, and occasionally lift my eyes and 
skim the weltering surface of mankind lying between me 
and the horizon, as a crow might ; no more.’ 

Knight stopped as if he had fallen into a train of 
thought, and Stephen looked with affectionate awe at a 
master whose mind, he believed, could swallow up at 
one meal all that his own head contained. 

*54 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


There was affective sympathy, but no great intel- 
lectual fellowship, between Knight and Stephen Smith. 
Knight had seen his young friend when the latter was 
a cherry-cheeked happy boy, had been interested in 
him, had kept his eye upon him, and generously helped 
the lad to books, till the mere connection of patronage 
grew to acquaintance, and that ripened to friendship. 
And so, though Smith was not at all the man Knight 
would have deliberately chosen as a friend — or even for 
one of a group of a dozen friends — he somehow was 
his friend. Circumstance, as usual, did it all. How 
many of us can say of our most intimate alter ego , 
leaving alone friends of the outer circle, that he is the 
man we should have chosen, as embodying the net 
result after adding up all the points in human nature 
that we love, and principles we hold, and subtracting 
all that we hate ? The man is really somebody we got 
to know by mere physical juxtaposition long maintained, 
and was taken into our confidence, and even heart, as 
a makeshift. 

‘ And what do you think of her ? ’ Stephen ventured 
to say, after a silence. 

* Taking her merits on trust from you,’ said Knight, 
‘ as we do those of the Roman poets of whom we 
know nothing but that they lived, I still think she 
will not stick to you through, say, three years of 
absence in India.’ 

‘ But she will ! ’ cried Stephen desperately. * She 
is a girl all delicacy and honour. And no woman of 
that kind, who has committed herself so into a man’s 
hands as she has into mine, could possibly marry 
another.’ 

‘How has she committed herself?’ asked Knight 
curiously. 

Stephen did not answer. Knight had looked on 
his love so sceptically that it would not do to say all 
that he had intended to say by any means. 

155 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


* Well, don’t tell/ said Knight. ‘ But you are 
begging the question, which is, I suppose, inevitable 
in love/ 

* And I’ll tell you another thing/ the younger man 
pleaded. ‘You remember what you said to me once 
about women receiving a kiss. Don’t you ? Why, 
that instead of our being charmed by the fascination 
of their bearing at such a time, we should immediately 
doubt them if their confusion has any grace in it — 
that awkward bungling was the true charm of the occa- 
sion, implying that we are the first who has played 
such a part with them.’ 

‘ It is true, quite/ said Knight musingly. 

It often happened that the disciple thus remem- 
bered the lessons of the master long after the master 
himself had forgotten them. 

‘ Well, that was like her ! ’ cried Stephen triumph- 
antly. * She was in such a flurry that she didn’t know 
what she was doing.’ 

‘ Splendid, splendid ! ’ said Knight soothingly. * So 
that all I have to say is, that if you see a good open- 
ing in Bombay there’s no reason why you should not 
go without troubling to draw fine distinctions as to 
reasons. No man fully realizes what opinions he acts 
upon, or what his actions mean.’ 

‘ Yes ; I go to Bombay. I’ll write a note here, if 
you don’t mind.’ 

‘ Sleep over it — it is the best plan — and write 
to-morrow. Meantime, go there to that window and 
sit down, and look at my Humanity Show. I am 
going to dine out this evening, and have to dress here 
out of my portmanteau. I bring up my things like 
this to save the trouble of going down to my place at 
Richmond and back again.’ 

Knight then went to the middle of the room and 
flung open his portmanteau, and Stephen drew near 
the window. The streak of sunlight had crept upward, 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


edged away, and vanished ; the zoophytes slept : a 
dusky gloom pervaded the room. And now another 
volume of light shone over the window. 

‘ There ! ’ said Knight, ‘ where is there in England 
a spectacle to equal that? I sit there and watch 
them every night before I go home. Softly open the 
sash.’ 

Beneath them was an alley running up to the wall, 
and thence turning sideways and passing under an 
arch, so that Knight’s back window was immediately 
over the angle, and commanded a view of the alley 
lengthwise. Crowds — mostly of women — were surging, 
bustling, and pacing up and down. Gaslights glared 
from butchers’ stalls, illuminating the lumps of flesh 
to splotches of orange and vermilion, like the wild 
colouring of Turner’s later pictures, whilst the purl 
and babble of tongues of every pitch and mood was 
to this human wild-wood what the ripple of a brook 
is to the natural forest. 

Nearly ten minutes passed. Then Knight also 
came to the window. 

‘ Well, now, I call a cab and vanish down the street 
in the direction of Berkeley Square,’ he said, buttoning 
his waistcoat and kicking his morning suit into a 
corner. Stephen rose to leave. 

‘ What a heap of literature ! ’ remarked the young 
man, taking a final longing survey round the room, as 
if to abide there for ever would be the great pleasure 
of his life, yet feeling that he had almost outstayed his 
welcome-while. His eyes rested upon an arm-chair 
piled full of newspapers, magazines, and bright new 
volumes in green and red. 

4 Yes,’ said Knight, also looking at them and breath- 
ing a sigh of weariness ; ‘ something must be done with 
several of them soon, I suppose. Stephen, you needn’t 
hurry away for a few minutes, you know, if you want 
to stay ; I am not quite ready. Overhaul those volumes 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


whilst I put on my coat, and I’ll walk a little way 
with you.’ 

Stephen sat down beside the arm-chair and began 
to tumble the books about. Among the rest he found a 
novelette in one volume, The Court of Kellyon Castle. 
By Ernest Field. 

‘ Are you going to review this ? ’ inquired Stephen 
with apparent unconcern, and holding up Elfride’s 
effusion. 

‘ Which ? Oh, that ! I may — though I don’t do 
much light reviewing now. But it is reviewable.’ 

‘How do you mean ? ’ 

Knight never liked to be asked what he meant. 
‘ Mean ! I mean that the majority of books published 
are neither good enough nor bad enough to provoke 
criticism, and that that book does provoke it.’ 

‘ By its goodness or its badness ? ’ Stephen said 
with some anxiety on poor little Elfride’s score. 

‘ Its badness. It seems to be written by some girl 
in her teens.’ 

Stephen said not another word. He did not care 
to speak plainly of Elfride after that unfortunate slip 
his tongue had made in respect of her having com- 
mitted herself; and, apart from that, Knight’s severe — 
almost dogged and self-willed — honesty in criticizing 
was unassailable by the humble wish of a youthful 
friend like Stephen. 

Knight was now ready. Turning of! the gas, and 
slamming together the door, they went downstairs and 
into the street. 


XIV 

‘We frolic while ’tis May.' 

It has now to be realized that nearly three-quarters of 
a year have passed away. In place of the autumnal 
scenery which formed a setting to the previous enact- 
ments, we have the culminating blooms of summer in 
the year following. 

Stephen is in India, slaving away at an office in 
Bombay; occasionally going up the country on pro- 
fessional errands, and wondering why people who had 
been there longer than he complained so much of the 
effect of the climate upon their constitutions. Never 
had a young man a finer start than seemed now to 
present itself to Stephen. It was just in that excep- 
tional heyday of prosperity which shone over Bombay 
some few years ago, that he arrived on the scene. 
Building and engineering partook of the general im- 
petus. Speculation moved with an accelerated velocity 
every successive day, the Only disagreeable contingency 
connected with it being the possibility of a collapse. 

Elfride had never told her father of the four-and- 
twenty-hours’ escapade with Stephen, nor had it, to 
her knowledge, come to his ears by any other route. 
It was a secret trouble and grief to the girl for a short 
159 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


time, and Stephen’s departure was another ingredient 
in her sorrow. But Elfride possessed special facilities 
for getting rid of trouble after a decent interval. Whilst 
a slow nature was imbibing a misfortune little by little, 
she had swallowed the whole agony of it at a draught 
and was brightening again. She could slough off a sad- 
ness and replace it by a hope as easily as a lizard renews 
a diseased limb. 

And two such excellent distractions had presented 
themselves. One was bringing out the romance and 
looking for notices in the papers, which, though they 
had been significantly short so far, had served to divert 
her thoughts. The other was migrating from the vicar- 
age to the more commodious old house of Mrs. Swan- 
court’s, overlooking the same valley. Mr. Swancourt 
at first disliked the idea of being transplanted to 
feminine soil, but the obvious advantages of such an 
accession of dignity reconciled him to the change. So 
there was a radical ‘ move ; ’ the two ladies staying at 
Torquay as had been arranged, the vicar going to and 
fro. 

Mrs. Swancourt considerably enlarged Elfride’s ideas 
in an aristocratic direction, and she began to forgive her 
father for his politic marriage. Certainly, in a worldly 
sense, a handsome face at three-and-forty had never 
served a man in better stead. 

The new house at Kensington was ready, and they 
were all in town. 

The Hyde Park shrubs had been transplanted as 
usual, the chairs ranked in line, the grass edgings 
trimmed, the roads made to look as if they were suffer- 
ing from a heavy thunderstorm; carriages had been 
called for by the easeful, horses by the brisk, and the 
Drive and Row were again the groove of gaiety for an 
hour. We gaze upon the spectacle, at six o’clock on 
this midsummer afternoon, in a melon-frame atmosphere 
160 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


and beneath a violet sky. The Swancourt equipage 
formed one in the stream. 

Mrs. Swancourt was a talker of talk of the incisive 
kind, which her low musical voice — the only beautiful 
point in the old woman — prevented from being weari- 
some. 

* Now,’ she said to Elfride, who, like /Eneas at 
Carthage, was full of admiration for the brilliant scene, 
‘ you will find that our companionless state will give us, 
as it does everybody, an extraordinary power in reading 
the features of our fellow-creatures here. I always am 
a listener in such places as these — not to the narratives 
told by my neighbours’ tongues, but by their faces — the 
advantage of which is, that whether I am in Row, 
Boulevard, Rialto, or Prado, they all speak the same 
language. I may have acquired some skill in this 
practice through having been an ugly lonely woman for 
so many years, with nobody to give me information ; a 
thing you will not consider strange when the parallel 
case is borne in mind, — how truly people who have no 
clocks will tell the time of day.’ 

‘ Ay, that they will,’ said Mr. Swancourt corrobora- 
tively. ‘ I have known labouring men at Endelstow 
and other farms who had framed complete systems of 
observation for that purpose. By means of shadows, 
winds, clouds, the movements of sheep and oxen, the 
singing of birds, the crowing of cocks, and a hundred 
other sights and sounds which people with watches in 
their pockets never know the existence of, they are 
able to pronounce within ten minutes of the hour 
almost at any required instant. That reminds me of 
an old story which I’m afraid is too bad — too bad to 
repeat.’ Here the vicar shook his head and laughed 
inwardly. 

4 Tell it — do ! ’ said the ladies. 

* I mustn’t quite tell it.’ 

‘ That’s absurd,’ said Mrs. Swancourt. 

161 


L 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


‘ It was only about a man who, by the same careful 
system of observation, was known to deceive persons for 
more than two years into the belief that he kept a baro- 
meter by stealth, so exactly did he foretell all changes 
in the weather by the braying of his ass and the temper 
of his wife.’ 

Elfride laughed. 

‘ Exactly,’ said Mrs. Swancourt. * And in just the 
way that those learnt the signs of nature, I have learnt 
the language of her illegitimate sister — artificiality ; and 
the fibbing of eyes, the contempt of nose-tips, the 
indignation of back hair, the laughter of clothes, the 
cynicism of footsteps, and the various emotions lying 
in walking-stick twirls, hat-liftings, the elevation of 
parasols, the carriage of umbrellas, become as A B C 
to me. 

‘Just look at that daughter’s sister class of mamma 
in the carriage across there,’ she continued to Elfride, 
pointing with merely a turn of her eye. ‘ The absorbing 
self-consciousness of her position that is shown by her 
countenance is most humiliating to a lover of one’s 
country. You would hardly believe, would you, that 
members of a Fashionable World, whose professed 
zero is far above the highest degree of the humble, 
could be so ignorant of the elementary instincts of 
reticence.’ 

‘How?’ 

‘ Why, to bear on their faces, as plainly as on a 
phylactery, the inscription, “ Do, pray, look at the 
coronet on my panels.” ’ 

‘ Really, Charlotte,’ said the vicar, * you see as much 
in faces as Mr. Puff saw in Lord Burleigh’s nod.’ 

Elfride could not but admire the beauty of her fellow 
countrywomen, especially since herself and her own few 
acquaintances had always been slightly sunburnt or 
marked on the back of the hands by a bramble- scratch 
at this time of the year. 


162 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


* And what lovely flowers and leaves they wear in 
their bonnets ! ’ she exclaimed. 

‘ Oh yes,’ returned Mrs. Swancourt. ‘ Some of them 
are even more striking in colour than any real ones. 
Look at that beautiful rose worn by the lady inside the 
rails. Elegant vine-tendrils introduced upon the stem 
as an improvement upon prickles, and all growing so 
naturally just over her ear — I say growing advisedly, 
for the pink of the petals and the pink of her handsome 
cheeks are equally from Nature’s hand to the eyes of 
the most casual observer.’ 

‘ But praise them a little, they do deserve it ! ’ said 
generous Elfride. 

‘ Well, I do. See how the Duchess of waves to 

and fro in her seat, utilizing the sway of her landau 
by looking around only when her head is swung forward, 
with a passive pride which forbids a resistance to the 
force of circumstance. Look at the pretty pout on the 
mouths of that family there, retaining no traces of being 
arranged beforehand, so well is it done. Look at the 
demure close of the little fists holding the parasols ; the 
tiny alert thumb, sticking up erect against the ivory 
stem as knowing as can be, the satin of the parasol 
invariably matching the complexion of the face beneath 
it, yet seemingly by an accident, which makes the thing 
so attractive. There’s the red book lying on the 
opposite seat, bespeaking the vast numbers of their 
acquaintance. And I particularly admire the aspect of 
that abundantly daughtered woman on the other side 
— I mean her look of unconsciousness that the girls 
are stared at by the walkers, and above all the look of 
the girls themselves — losing their gaze in the depths 
of handsome men’s eyes without appearing to notice 
whether they are observing masculine eyes or the leaves 
of the trees. There’s praise for you. But I am only 
jesting, child — you know that.’ 

1 Piph-ph-ph — how warm it is, to be sure ! ’ said Mr. 

163 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


Swancourt, as if his mind were a long distance from all 
he saw. ‘ I declare that my watch is so hot that I can 
scarcely bear to touch it to see what the time is, and all 
the world smells like the inside of a hat.’ 

* How the men stare at you, Elfride ! ’ said the elder 
lady. ‘ You will kill me quite, I am afraid.’ 

‘ Kill you ? ’ 

‘ As a diamond kills an opal in the same setting.’ 

‘ I have noticed several ladies and gentlemen looking 
at me,’ said Elfride artlessly, showing her pleasure at 
being observed. 

‘ My dear, you mustn’t say “ gentlemen ” nowadays,’ 
her stepmother answered in the tones of arch concern 
that so well became her ugliness. ‘ We have handed over 
“ gentlemen ” to the lower middle class, where the word 
is still to be heard at tradesmen’s balls and provincial 
tea-parties, I believe. It is done with here.’ 

‘ What must I say, then ? ’ 

‘ “ Ladies and men ” always.’ 

At this moment appeared in the stream of vehicles 
moving in the contrary direction a chariot presenting in 
its general surface the rich indigo hue of a midnight 
sky, the wheels and margins being picked out in delicate 
lines of ultramarine; the servants’ liveries were dark- 
blue coats and silver lace, and breeches of neutral Indian 
red. The whole concern formed an organic whole, and 
moved along behind a pair of dark chestnut geldings, 
who advanced in an indifferently zealous trot, very 
daintily performed, and occasionally shrugged divers 
points of their veiny surface as if they were rather above 
the business. 

In this sat a gentleman with no decided characteristics 
more than that he somewhat resembled a good-natured 
commercial traveller of the superior class. Beside him 
was a lady with skim-milky eyes and complexion, be- 
longing to the “interesting” class of women, where 
that class merges in the sickly, her greatest pleasure 
164 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


being apparently to enjoy nothing. Opposite this pair 
sat two little girls in white hats and blue feathers. 

The lady saw Elfride, smiled and bowed, and touched 
her husband’s elbow, who turned and received Elfride’s 
movement of recognition with a gallant elevation of his 
hat. Then the two children held up their arms to 
Elfride, and laughed gleefully. 

* Who is that ? ’ 

‘ Why, Lord Luxellian, isn’t it ? ’ said Mrs. Swan- 
court, who with the vicar had been seated with her 
back towards them. 

‘ Yes,’ replied Elfride. ‘ He is the one man of those 
I have seen here whom I consider handsomer than papa.’ 

‘ Thank you, dear,’ said Mr. Swancourt. 

‘Yes; but your father is so much older. When 
Lord Luxellian gets a little further on in life, he won’t 
be half so good-looking as our man.’ 

‘ Thank you, dear, likewise,’ said Mr. Swancourt. 

‘ See,’ exclaimed Elfride, still looking towards them, 
‘ how those little dears want me ! Actually one of them 
is crying for me to come.’ 

‘ We were talking of bracelets just now. Look at 
Lady Luxellian’s,’ said Mrs. Swancourt, as that baroness 
lifted up her arm to support one of the children. * It 
is slipping up her arm — too large by half. I hate to 
see daylight between a bracelet and a wrist ; I wonder 
women haven’t better taste.’ 

‘ It is not on that account, indeed,’ Elfride expostu- 
lated. ‘ It is that her arm has got thin, poor thing. 
You cannot think how much she has altered in this 
last twelvemonth.’ 

The carriages were now nearer together, and there 
was an exchange of more familiar greetings between 
the two families. Then the Luxellians crossed over 
and drew up under the plane-trees, just in the rear of 
the Swancourts. Lord Luxellian alighted, and came 
forward with a musical laugh. 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


It was his attraction as a man. People liked him 
for those tones, and forgot that he had no talents. 
Acquaintances remembered Mr. Swancourt by his 
manner ; they remembered Stephen Smith by his face, 
Lord Luxellian by his laugh. 

Mr. Swancourt made some friendly remarks — among 
others things upon the heat. 

‘Yes/ said Lord Luxellian, ‘we were driving by a 
furrier’s window this afternoon, and the sight filled us 
all with such a sense of suffocation that we were glad 
to get away. Ha-ha ! ’ He turned to Elfride. * Miss 
Swancourt, I have hardly seen or spoken to you since 
your literary feat was made public. I had no idea a 
chiel was taking notes down at quiet Endelstow, or I 
should certainly have put myself and friends upon out 
best behaviour. Swancourt, why didn’t you give me a 
hint ! ’ 

Elfride fluttered, blushed, laughed, said it was nothing 
to speak of, &c. &c. 

4 Well, I think you were rather unfairly treated by 
the Present; I certainly do. Writing a heavy review 
like that upon an elegant trifle like the Court of Kelly on 
Castle was absurd.’ . 

4 What ? ’ said Elfride, opening her eyes. 4 Was I 
reviewed in the Present ? ’ 

4 Oh yes ; didn’t you see it ? Why, it was four or 
five months ago ! ’ 

4 No, I never saw it. How sorry I am ! What a 
shame of my publishers ! They promised to send me 
every notice that appeared.’ 

4 Ah, then, I am almost afraid I have been giving 
you disagreeable information, intentionally withheld out 
of courtesy. Depend upon it they thought no good 
would come of sending it, and so would not pain you 
unnecessarily.’ 

4 Oh no ; I am indeed glad you have told me, Lord 
Luxellian. It is quite a mistaken kindness on their 
1 66 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


part. Is the review so much against me ? ’ she inquired 
tremulously. 

‘No, no; not that exactly — though I almost forget 
its exact purport now. It was merely — merely sharp, 
you know — ungenerous, I might say. But really my 
memory does not enable me to speak decidedly.’ 

‘ We’ll drive to the Present office, and get one 
directly ; shall we, papa ? ’ 

‘ If you are so anxious, dear, we will, or send. But 
to-morrow will do.’ 

‘ And do oblige me in a little matter now, Elfride,’ 
said Lord Luxellian warmly, and looking as if he were 
sorry he had brought news that disturbed her. ‘ I am 
in reality sent here as a special messenger by my 
little Polly and Katie to ask you to come into our 
carriage with them for a short time. I am just going 
to walk across into Piccadilly, and my wife is left 
alone with them. I am afraid they are rather spoilt 
children ; but I have half promised them you shall 
come.’ 

The steps were let down, and Elfride was transferred 
— to the intense delight of the little girls, and to the 
mild interest of loungers with red skins and long 
necks, who cursorily eyed the performance with their 
walking-sticks to their lips, occasionally laughing from 
far down their throats and with their eyes, their mouths 
not being concerned in the operation at all. Lord 
Luxellian then told the coachman to drive on, lifted his 
hat, smiled a smile that missed its mark and alighted 
on a total stranger, who bowed in bewilderment. Lord 
Luxellian looked long at Elfride. 

The look was a manly, open, and genuine look of 
admiration ; a momentary tribute of a kind which any 
honest Englishman might have paid to fairness without 
being ashamed of the feeling, or permitting it to encroach 
in the slightest degree upon his emotional obligations as 
a husband and head of a family. Then Lord Luxellian 
167 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


turned away, and walked musingly to the upper end of 
the promenade. 

Mr. Swancourt had alighted at the same time with 
Elfride, crossing over to the Row for a few minutes to 
speak to a friend he recognized there ; and his wife was 
thus left sole tenant of the carriage. 

Now, whilst this little act had been in course of 
performance, there stood among the promenading spec- 
tators a man of somewhat different description from 
the rest. Behind the general throng, in the rear of the 
chairs, and leaning against the trunk of a tree, he looked 
at Elfride with quiet and critical interest. 

Three points about this unobtrusive person showed 
promptly to the exercised eye that he was not a Row 
man pur sang. First, an irrepressible wrinkle or two 
in the waist of his frock-coat — denoting that he had not 
damned his tailor sufficiently to drive that tradesman up 
to the orthodox high pressure of cunning workmanship. 
Second, a slight slovenliness of umbrella, occasioned by 
its owner’s habit of resting heavily upon it, and using 
it as a veritable walking-stick, instead of letting its point 
touch the ground in the most coquettish of kisses, as 
is the proper Row manner to do. Third, and chief 
reason, that try how you might, you could scarcely help 
supposing, on looking at his face, that your eyes were 
not far from a well-finished mind, instead of the well- 
finished skin et prceterea nihil , which is by rights the 
Mark of the Row. 

The probability is that, had not Mrs. Swancourt been 
left alone in her carriage under the tree, this man would 
have remained in his unobserved seclusion. But seeing 
her thus, he came round to the front, stooped under the 
rail, and stood beside the carriage-door. 

Mrs. Swancourt looked reflectively at him for a 
quarter of a minute, then held out her hand laugh- 
ingly : 

‘ Why, Henry Knight — of course it is ! My — second 
168 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


— third — fourth cousin — what shall I say? At any 
rate, my kinsman.’ 

‘Yes, one of a remnant not yet cut off. I scarcely 
was certain of you, either, from where I was standing.’ 

‘ I have not seen you since you first went to Oxford ; 
consider the number of years ! You know, I suppose, 
of my marriage ? ’ 

And there sprang up a dialogue concerning family 
matters of birth, death, and marriage, which it is not 
necessary to detail. Knight presently inquired : 

‘ The young lady who changed into the other carriage 
is, then, your stepdaughter ? ’ 

‘Yes, Elfride. You must know her.’ 

‘ And who was the lady in the carriage Elfride 
entered ; who had an ill-defined and watery look, as if 
she were only the reflection of herself in a pool ? ’ 

‘ Lady Luxellian ; very weakly, Elfride says. My 
husband is remotely connected with them; but there 

is not much intimacy on account of . However, 

Henry, you’ll come and see us, of course. 24 Chevron 
Square. Come this week. We shall only be in town 
a week or two longer.’ 

‘ Let me see. I’ve got to run up to Oxford to- 
morrow, where I shall be for several days; so that I 
must, I fear, lose the pleasure of seeing you in London 
this year.’ 

‘ Then come to Endelstow ; why not return with 
us ? ’ 

‘ I am afraid if I were to come before August I 
should have to leave again in a day or two. I should 
be delighted to be with you at the beginning of that 
month; and I could stay a nice long time. I have 
thought of going westward all the summer.’ 

‘ Very well. Now remember that’s a compact. And 
won’t you wait now and see Mr. Swancourt ? He will 
not be away ten minutes longer.’ 

‘ No ; I’ll beg to be excused ; for I must get to my 

M 169 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


chambers again this evening before I go home ; indeed, 
I ought to have been there now — I have such a press of 
matters to attend to just at present. You will explain 
to him, please. Good-bye/ 

‘And let us know the day of your appearance as 
soon as you can/ 

‘I will/ 


XV 


‘A wandering voice.* 

Though sheer and intelligible griefs are not charmed 
away by being confided to mere acquaintances, the pro- 
cess is a palliative to certain ill -humours. Among 
these, perplexed vexation is one — a species of trouble 
which, like a stream, gets shallower by the simple 
operation of widening it in any quarter. 

On the evening of the day succeeding that of the 
meeting in the Park, Elfride and Mrs. Swancourt were 
engaged in conversation in the dressing-room of the 
latter. Such a treatment of such a case was in course 
of adoption here. 

Elfride had just before received an affectionate letter 
from Stephen Smith in Bombay, which had been for- 
warded to her from Endelstow. But since this is not 
the case referred to, it is not worth while to pry further 
into the contents of the letter than to discover that, 
with rash though pardonable confidence in coming 
times, he addressed her in high spirits as his darling 
future wife. 

Probably there cannot be instanced a briefer and 
surer rule-of-thumb test of a man’s temperament — 
sanguine or cautious — than this : did he or does he 

171 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


ante-date the word wife in corresponding with a sweet- 
heart he honestly loves ? 

She had taken this epistle into her own room, read a 
little of it, then saved the rest for to-morrow, not wish- 
ing to be so extravagant as to consume the pleasure all 
at once. Nevertheless, she could not resist the wish 
to enjoy yet a little more, so out came the letter again, 
and in spite of misgivings as to prodigality the whole 
was devoured. The letter was finally reperused and 
placed in her pocket. 

What was this? Also a newspaper for Elfride, 
which she had overlooked in her hurry to open the 
letter. It was the old number of the Present , contain- 
ing the article upon her book, forwarded as had been 
requested. 

Elfride had hastily read it through, shrunk percep- 
tibly smaller, and had then gone with the paper in her 
hand to Mrs. Swancourt’s dressing-room, to lighten or 
at least modify her vexation by a discriminating estimate 
from her stepmother. 

She was now looking disconsolately out of the 
window. 

‘ Never mind, my child,’ said Mrs. Swancourt after 
a careful perusal of the matter indicated. * I don’t see 
that the review is such a terrible one, after all. Besides, 
everybody has forgotten abouf it by this time. I’m 
sure the opening is good enough for any book ever 
written. Just listen — it sounds better read aloud than 
when you pore over it silently : “ The Court of Kellyon 
Castle. A Romance of the Middle Ages. By Ernest 
Field. In the belief that we were for a while escaping 
the monotonous repetition ofwearisome details in modern 
social scenery, analyses of uninteresting character, or 
the unnatural unfoldings of a sensation plot, we took 
this volume into our hands with a feeling of pleasure. 
We were disposed to beguile ourselves with the fancy 
that some new change might possibly be rung upon 
172 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


donjon keeps, chain and plate armour, deeply scarred 
cheeks, tender maidens disguised as pages, to which 
we had not listened long ago.” Now, that’s a very 
good beginning, in my opinion, and one to be proud of 
having brought out of a man who has never seen you.’ 

* Ah, yes,’ murmured Elfride wofully. 4 But, then, 
see further on ! ’ 

4 Well the next bit is rather unkind, I must own,’ 
said Mrs. Swancourt, and read on. 4 44 Instead of this 
we found ourselves in the hands of some young lady, 
hardly arrived at years of discretion, to judge by the 
silly device it has been thought worth while to adopt on 
the title-page, with the idea of disguising her sex.” ’ 

4 I am not “ silly ” ! ’ said Elfride indignantly. 4 He 
might have called me anything but that.’ 

4 You are not, indeed. Well : — 44 Hands of a young 
lady . . . whose chapters are simply devoted to im- 
possible tournaments, towers, and escapades, which 
read like flat copies of like scenes in the stories of 
Mr. G. P. R. James, and the most unreal portions of 
Ivanhoe . The bait is so palpably artificial that the 
most credulous gudgeon turns away.” Now, my dear, 
I don’t see overmuch to complain of in that. It 
proves that you were clever enough to make him think 
of Sir Walter Scott, which is a great deal.’ 

4 Oh yes ; though I cannot romance myself, I am 
able to remind him of those who can ! ’ Elfride in- 
tended to hurl these words sarcastically at her invisible 
enemy, but as she had no more satirical power than 
a wood-pigeon, they merely fell in a pretty murmur 
from lips shaped to a pout. 

4 Certainly : and that’s something. Your book is 
good enough to be bad in an ordinary literary manner, 
and doesn’t stand by itself in a melancholy position 
altogether worse than assailable . — 44 That interest in an 
historical romance may nowadays have any chance of 
being sustained, it is indispensable that the reader find 
173 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


himself under the guidance of some nearly extinct 
species of legendary, who, in addition to an impulse 
towards antiquarian research and an unweakened faith 
in the mediaeval halo, shall possess an inventive faculty 
in which delicacy of sentiment is far overtopped by a 
power of welding to stirring incident a spirited variety 
of the elementary human passions.” Well, that long- 
winded effusion doesn’t refer to you at all, Elfride, 
merely something put in to fill up. Let me see, 
when does he come to you again ; . . . not till the 
very end, actually. Here you are finally polished off : 

‘ “ But to return to the little work we have used 
as the text of this article. We are far from altogether 
disparaging the author’s powers. She has a certain 
versatility that enables her to use with effect a style 
of narration peculiar to herself, which may be called a 
murmuring of delicate emotional trifles, the particular 
gift of those to whom the social sympathies of a 
peaceful time are as daily food. Hence, where matters 
of domestic experience, and the natural touches which 
make people real, can be introduced without anachro- 
nisms too striking, she is occasionally felicitous ; and 
upon the whole we feel justified in saying that the 
book will bear looking into for the sake of those 
portions which have nothing whatever to do with the 
story.” 

‘ Well, I suppose it is intended for satire ; but don’t 
think anything more of it now, my dear. It is seven 
o’clock.’ And Mrs. Swancourt rang for her maid. 

Attack is more piquant than concord. Stephen’s 
letter was concerning nothing but oneness with her : 
the review was the very reverse. And a stranger with 
neither name nor shape, age nor appearance, but a 
mighty voice, is naturally rather an interesting novelty 
to a lady he chooses to address. When Elfride fell 
asleep that night she was loving the writer of the 
letter, but thinking of the writer of that article. 

174 


XVI 


‘Then fancy shapes — as fancy can.* 

On a day about three weeks later, the Swancourt trio 
were sitting quietly in the drawing-room of The Crags, 
Mrs. Swancourt’s house at Endelstow, chatting, and 
taking easeful survey of their previous month or two 
of town — a tangible weariness even to people whose 
acquaintances there might be counted on the fingers. 

A mere season in London with her practised step- 
mother had so advanced Elfride’s perceptions, that her 
courtship by Stephen seemed emotionally meagre, and 
to have drifted back several years into a childish past. 
In regarding our mental experiences, as in visual obser- 
vation, our own progress reads like a dwindling of that 
we progress from. 

She was seated on a low chair, looking over her 
romance with melancholy interest for the first time 
since she had become acquainted with the remarks of 
the Present thereupon. 

‘ Still thinking of that reviewer, Elfie ? ’ 

‘Not of him personally; but I am thinking of his 
opinion. Really, on looking into the volume after this 
long time has elapsed, he seems to have estimated one 
part of it fairly enough.’ 


175 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


‘No, no; I wouldn’t show the white feather now! 
Fancy that of all people in the world the writer herself 
should go over to the enemy. How shall Monmouth’s 
men fight when Monmouth runs away ? ’ 

‘ I don’t do that. But I think he is right in some 
of his arguments, though wrong in others. And because 
he has some claim to my respect I regret all the more 
that he should think so mistakenly of my motives in 
one or two instances. It is more vexing to be mis- 
understood than to be misrepresented; and he mis- 
understands me. I cannot be easy whilst a person 
goes to rest night after night attributing to me intentions 
I never had.’ 

* He doesn’t know your name, or anything about 
you. And he has doubtless forgotten there is such a 
book in existence by this time.’ 

‘ I myself should certainly like him to be put right 
upon one or two matters,’ said the vicar, who had 
hitherto been silent. ‘You see, critics go on writing, 
and are never corrected or argued with, and therefore 
are never improved.’ 

‘ Papa,’ said Elfride brightening, ‘ write to him ! ’ 

‘ I would as soon write to him as look at him, for 
the matter of that,’ said Mr. Swancourt. 

‘ Do ! And say, the young person who wrote the 
book did not adopt a masculine pseudonym in vanity or 
conceit, but because she was afraid it would be thought 
presumptuous to publish her name, and that she did 
not mean the story for such as he, but as a sweetener 
of history for young people, who might thereby acquire 
a taste for what went on in their own country hundreds 
of years ago, and be tempted to dive deeper into the 
subject. Oh, there is so much to explain; I wish I 
might write myself ! ’ 

‘ Now, Elfie, I’ll tell you what we will do,’ answered 
Mr. Swancourt, tickled with a sort of bucolic humour at 
the idea of criticizing the critic. ‘ You shall write a clear 
176 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


account of what he is wrong in, and I will copy it and 
send it as mine.’ 

‘Yes, now, directly!’ said Elfride, jumping up. 
‘ When will you send it, papa ? ’ 

‘ Oh, in a day or two, I suppose,’ he returned. Then 
the vicar paused and slightly yawned, and in the manner 
of elderly people began to cool from his ardour for the 
undertaking now that it came to the point. ‘ But, really, 
it is hardly worth while,’ he said. 

‘ O papa ! ’ said Elfride, with much disappointment. 
‘You said you would, and now you won’t. That is not 
fair ! ’ 

‘ But how can we send it if we don’t know whom to 
send it to ? ’ 

* If you really want to send such a thing it can easily 
be done,’ said Mrs. Swancourt, coming to her step- 
daughter’s rescue. ‘ An envelope addressed, ‘f To the 
Critic of The Court of Kelly on Castle , care of the Editor 
of the Present ,” would find him/ 

‘ Yes, I suppose it would.’ 

‘ Why not write your answer yourself, Elfride ? ’ Mrs. 
Swancourt inquired. 

* I might,’ she said hesitatingly ; ‘ and send it anony- 
mously : that would be treating him as he has treated 
me.’ 

‘ No use in the world ! ’ 

‘ But I don’t like to let him know my exact name. 
Suppose I put my initials only? The less you are 
known the more you are thought of.’ 

‘ Yes ; you might do that.’ 

Elfride set to work there and then. Her one desire 
for the last fortnight seemed likely to be realized. As 
happens with sensitive and secluded minds, a continual 
dwelling upon the subject had magnified to colossal 
proportions the space she assumed herself to occupy 
or to have occupied in the occult critic’s mind. At 
noon and at night she had been pestering herself with 
177 m 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


endeavours to perceive more distinctly his conception 
of her as a woman apart from an author : whether he 
really despised her ; whether he thought more or less of 
her than of ordinary young women who never ventured 
into the fire of criticism at all. Now she would have the 
satisfaction of feeling that at any rate he knew her true 
intent in crossing his path, and annoying him so by 
her performance, and be taught perhaps to despise it a 
little less. 

Four days later an envelope, directed to Miss Swan- 
court in a strange hand, made its appearance from the 
post-bag. 

‘ Oh,’ said Elfride, her heart sinking within her. 
‘ Can it be from that man — a lecture for impertinence ? 
And actually one for Mrs. Swancourt in the same hand- 
writing ! ’ She feared to open hers. * Yet how can he 
know my name? No ; it is somebody else/ 

* Nonsense !’ said her father grimly. ‘You sent 
your initials, and the Directory was available. Though 
he wouldn’t have taken the trouble to look there unless 
he had been thoroughly savage with you. I thought you 
wrote with rather more asperity than simple literary 
discussion required/ This timely clause was introduced 
to save the character of the vicar’s judgment under any 
issue of affairs. 

* Well, here I go,’ said Elfride, desperately tearing 
open the seal. 

‘ To be sure, of course,’ exclaimed Mrs. Swancourt ; 
and looking up from her own letter. ‘ Christopher, I 
quite forgot to tell you, when I mentioned that I had 
seen my distant relative, Harry Knight, that I invited 
him here for whatever length of time he could spare. 
And now he says he can come any day in August.’ 

* Write, and say the first of the month,’ replied the 
indiscriminate vicar. 

She read on. ‘Goodness me — and that isn’t all. 
He is actually the reviewer of Elfride’s book. How 
178 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


absurd, to be sure ! I had no idea he reviewed novels 
or had anything to do with the Present. He is a 
barrister — and I thought he only wrote in the Quar- 
terlies. Why, Elfride, you have brought about an odd 
entanglement ! What does he say to you ? ’ 

Elfride had put down her letter with a dissatisfied 
flush on her face. * I don’t know. The idea of his 
knowing my name and all about me ! . . . Why, he 
says nothing particular, only this — 

‘ “ My dear Madam, — Though I am sorry that my 
remarks should have seemed harsh to you, it is a 
pleasure to find that they have been the means of 
bringing forth such an ingeniously argued reply. Un- 
fortunately, it is so long since I wrote my review, that 
my memory does not serve me sufficiently to say a 
single word in my defence, even supposing there remains 
one to be said, which is doubtful. You will find from a 
letter I have written to Mrs. Swancourt, that we are not 
such strangers to each other as we have been imagining. 
Possibly, I may have the pleasure of seeing you soon, 
when any argument you choose to advance shall receive 
all the attention it deserves.” 

‘ That is dim sarcasm — I know it is.’ 

i Oh no, Elfride.’ 

« And then, his remarks didn’t seem harsh — I mean 
I did not say so.’ 

‘ He thinks you are in a frightful temper,’ said Mr. 
Swancourt, chuckling in undertones. 

‘And he will come and see me, and find the 
a thoress as contemptible in speech as she has been 
impertinent in manner. I do heartily wish I had never 
written a word to him ! ’ 

‘Never mind,’ said Mrs. Swancourt, also laughing 
in low quiet jerks ; ‘ it will make the meeting such a 
comical affair, and afford splendid by-play for your 
179 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


father and myself. The idea of our running our heads 
against Harry Knight all the time ! I cannot get 
over that. 7 

The vicar had immediately remembered the name to 
be that of Stephen Smith’s preceptor and friend ; but 
having ceased to concern himself in the matter he 
made no remark to that effect, consistently forbearing 
to allude to anything which could restore recollection 
of the (to him) disagreeable mistake with regard to poor 
Stephen’s lineage and position. Elfride had of course 
perceived the same thing, which added to the compli- 
cation of relationship a mesh that her stepmother knew 
nothing of. 

The identification scarcely heightened Knight’s at- 
tractions now, though a twelvemonth ago she would 
only have cared to see him for the interest he pos- 
sessed as Stephen’s friend. Fortunately for Knight’s 
advent, such a reason for welcome had only begun to 
be awkward to her at a time when the interest he 
had acquired on his own account made it no longer 
necessary 7 . 

These coincidences, in common with all relating to 
him, tended to keep Elfride’s mind upon the stretch 
concerning Knight. As was her custom when upon 
the horns of a dilemma, she walked off by herself among 
the laurel bushes, and there, standing still and splitting 
up a leaf without removing it from its stalk, fetched 
back recollections of Stephen’s frequent words in praise 
of his friend, and wished she had listened more atten- 
tively. Then, still pulling the leaf, she would blush 
at some fancied mortification that would accrue to her 
from his words when they met, in consequence of 
her intrusiveness, as she now considered it, in writing 
to him. 

The next development of her meditations was the 
subject of what this man’s personal appearance might 
180 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


be — was he tall or short, dark or fair, gay or grim? 
She would have asked Mrs. Swancourt but for the 
risk she might thereby incur of some teasing remark 
being returned. Ultimately Elfride would say, ‘ Oh, 
what a plague that reviewer is to me ! * and turn her 
face to where she imagined India lay, and murmur to 
herself, 1 Ah, my little husband, what are you doing 
now ? Let me see, where are you — south, east, where ? 
Behind that hill, ever so far behind ! ’ 


XVII 


* Her welcome, spoke in faltering phrase.* 

T HERE is Henry Knight, I declare ! ’ said Mrs 
Swancourt one day. 

They were gazing from the jutting angle ol a wild 
enclosure not far from The Crags, which almost over- 
hung the valley already described as leading up from 
the sea and little port of Castle Boterel. The stony 
escarpment upon which they stood had the contour of 
a man’s face, and it was covered with furze as with a 
beard. People in the field above were preserved from 
an accidental roll down these prominences and hollows 
by a hedge on the very crest, which was doing that 
kindly service for Elfride and her mother now. 

Scrambling higher into the hedge and stretching hei 
neck further over the furze, Elfride beheld the individual 
signified. He was walking leisurely along the little 
green path at the bottom, beside the stream, a satchel 
slung upon his left hip, a stout walking-stick in his 
hand, and a brown-holland sun-hat upon his head. 
The satchel was worn and old, and the outer polished 
surface of the leather was cracked and peeling off. 

Knight having arrived over the hills to Castle 
Boterel upon the top of a crazy omnibus, preferred to 
182 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 

walk the remaining two miles up the valley, leaving 
his luggage to be brought on. 

Behind him wandered, helter-skelter, a boy of whom 
Knight had briefly inquired the way to Endelstow ; 
and by that natural law of physics which causes lesser 
bodies to gravitate towards the greater, this boy had 
kept near to Knight, and trotted like a little dog close 
at his heels, whistling as he went, with his eyes fixed 
upon Knight’s boots as they rose and fell. 

When they had reached a point precisely opposite 
that in which Mrs. and Miss Swancourt lay in ambush, 
Knight stopped and turned round 

‘ Look here, my boy,’ he said. 

The boy parted his lips, opened his eyes, and 
answered nothing. 

‘ Here’s sixpence for you, on condition that you 
don’t again come within twenty yards of my heels, all 
the way up the valley.’ 

The boy, who apparently had not known he had 
been looking at Knight’s heels at all, took the sixpence 
mechanically, and Knight went on again, wrapt in 
meditation. 

A nice voice,’ Elfride thought ; ‘ but what a singular 
temper ! ’ 

‘Now we must get indoors before he ascends the 
slope,’ said Mrs. Swancourt softly. And they went 
across by a short cut over a stile, entering the lawn 
by a side door, and so on to the house. 

Mr. Swancourt had gone into the village with the 
curate, and Elfride felt too nervous to await their 
visitor’s arrival in the drawing-room with Mrs. Swan- 
court. So that when the elder lady entered, Elfride 
made some pretence of perceiving a new variety of 
crimson geranium, and lingered behind among the 
flower beds. 

There was nothing gained by this, after all, she 
thought; and a few minutes after boldly came into 

1S3 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


the house by the glass side-door. She walked along 
the corridor, and entered the drawing-room. Nobody 
was there. 

A window at the angle of the room opened directly 
into an octagonal conservatory, enclosing the corner of 
the building. From the conservatory came voices in 
conversation — Mrs. Swancourt’s and the stranger’s. 

She had expected him to talk brilliantly. To her 
surprise he was asking questions in quite a learner’s 
manner, on subjects connected with the flowers and 
shrubs that she had known for years. When after 
the lapse of a few minutes he spoke at some length, 
she considered there was a hard square decisiveness 
in the shape of his sentences, as if, unlike her own 
and Stephen’s, they were not there and then newly 
constructed, but were drawn forth from a large store 
ready-made. They were now approaching the window 
to come in again. 

‘ That is a flesh-coloured variety,’ said Mrs. Swan- 
court. * But oleanders, though they are such bulky 
shrubs, are so very easily wounded as to be unprunable 
— giants with the sensitiveness of young ladies. Oh, 
here is Elfride ! ’ 

Elfride looked as guilty and crestfallen as Lady 
Teazle at the dropping of the screen. Mrs. Swancourt 
presented him half comically, and Knight in a minute 
or two placed himself beside the young lady. 

A complexity of instincts checked Elfride’s conven- 
tional smiles of complaisance and hospitality; and, to 
make her still less comfortable, Mrs. Swancourt im- 
mediately afterwards left them together to seek her 
husband. Mr. Knight, however, did not seem at all 
incommoded by his feelings, and he said with light 
easefulness : 

‘ So, Miss Swancourt, I have met you at last. You 
escaped me by a few minutes only when we were in 
London.’ 

184 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


* Yes. I found that you had seen Mrs. Swancourt.’ 

* And now reviewer and reviewed are face to face/ 
he added unconcernedly. 

‘ Yes : though the fact of your being a relation of 
Mrs. Swancourt’s takes off the edge of it. It was 
strange that you should be one of her family all the 
time/ Elfride began to recover herself now, and to 
look into Knight’s face. ‘ I was merely anxious to 
let you know my real meaning in writing the book — 
extremely anxious/ 

* I can quite understand the wish ; and I was 
gratified that my remarks should have reached home. 
They very seldom do, I am afraid/ 

Elfride drew herself in. Here he was, sticking to 
his opinions as firmly as if friendship and politeness 
did not in the least require an immediate renunciation 
of them. 

‘ You made me very uneasy and sorry by writing 
such things ! ’ she murmured, suddenly dropping the 
mere caqueterie of a fashionable first introduction, and 
speaking with some of the dudgeon of a child towards 
a severe schoolmaster. 

‘ That is rather the object of honest critics in such a 
case. Not to cause unnecessary sorrow, but : “ To make 
you sorry after a proper manner, that ye may receive 
damage by us in nothing,” as a powerful pen once wrote to 
the Gentiles. Are you going to write another romance?’ 

‘ Write another ? ’ she said. * That somebody may 
pen a condemnation and “ nail’t wi’ Scripture ” again, 
as you do now, Mr. Knight ? ’ 

‘ You may do better next time,’ he said placidly : 
‘ I think you will. But I would advise you to confine 
yourself to domestic scenes.’ 

‘ Thank you. But never again ! ’ 

‘ Well, you may be right. That a young woman has 
taken to writing is not by any means the best thing to 
hear about her.’ 

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A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


* What is the best ? 7 

* I prefer not to say. 7 

‘ Do you know ? Then, do tell me, please. 7 

‘ Well 7 — ( Knight was evidently changing his mean- 
ing) — ‘ I suppose to hear that she has married. 7 

Elfride hesitated. ‘ And what when she has been 
married ? 7 she said at last, partly in order to withdraw 
her own person from the argument. 

‘ Then to hear no more about her. It is as Smeaton 
said of his lighthouse : her greatest real praise, when 
the novelty of her inauguration has worn off, is that 
nothing happens to keep the talk of her alive. 7 

Yes, 1 see, said Elfride softly and thoughtfully. 
* But of course it is different quite with men. Why 
don 7 t you write novels, Mr. Knight ? 7 

‘ Because I couldn’t write one that would interest 
anybody. 7 

‘Why? 7 

‘ For several reasons. It requires a judicious omis- 
sion of your real thoughts to make a novel popular, for 
one thing. 7 

‘ Is that really necessary ? Well, I am sure you could 
learn to do that with practice, 7 said Elfride with an 
tx-cathedra air, as became a person who spoke from 
experience in the art. ‘ You would make a great name 
for certain, 7 she continued. 

‘ So many people make a name nowadays, that it is 
more distinguished to remain in obscurity. 7 

‘ Tell me seriously — apart from the subject — why 
don’t you write a volume instead of loose articles ? 7 she 
insisted. 

‘ Since you are pleased to make me talk of myself, 
I will tell you seriously, 7 said Knight, not less amused 
at this catechism by his young friend than he was 
interested in her appearance. ‘ As I have implied, I 
have not the wish. And if I had the wish, I could not 
now concentrate sufficiently. We all have only our one 
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cruse of energy given us to make the best of. And 
where that energy has been leaked away week by week, 
quarter by quarter, as mine has for the last nine or ten 
years, there is not enough dammed back behind the mill 
at any given period to supply the force a complete book 
on any subject requires. Then there is the self-con- 
fidence and waiting power. Where quick results have 
grown customary, they are fatal to a lively faith in the 
future.’ 

‘Yes, I comprehend ; and so you choose to write in 
fragments ? ’ 

‘ No, I don’t choose to do it in the sense you mean ; 
choosing from a whole world of professions, all possible. 
It was by the constraint of accident merely. Not that 
I object to the accident.’ 

‘Why don’t you object — I mean, why do you feel 
so quiet about things?’ Elfride was half afraid to 
question him so, but her intense curiosity to see what 
the inside of literary Mr. Knight was like, kept her 
going on. 

Knight certainly did not mind being frank with her. 
Instances of this trait in men who are not without feel- 
ing, but are reticent from habit, may be recalled by all of 
us. When they find a listener who can by no possi- 
bility make use of them, rival them, or condemn them, 
reserved and even suspicious men of the world become 
frank, keenly enjoying the inner side of their frankness. 

‘ Why I don’t mind the accidental constraint,’ he 
replied, ‘is because, in making beginnings, a chance 
limitation of direction is often better than absolute 
freedom.’ 

‘ I see — that is, I should if I quite understood what 
all those generalities mean.’ 

‘ Why, this : That an arbitrary foundation for one’s 
work, which no length of thought can alter, leaves the 
attention free to fix itself on the work itself, and make 
the best of it.’ 


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‘ Lateral compression forcing altitude, as would be 
said in that tongue/ she said mischievously. * And I 
suppose where no limit exists, as in the case of a rich 
man with a wide taste who wants to do something, it 
will be better to choose a limit capriciously than to 
have none.’ 

‘ Yes,’ he said meditatively. ‘ I can go as far as 
that.’ 

‘ Well,’ resumed Elfride, ‘ I think it better for a 
man’s nature if he does nothing in particular.’ 

‘ There is such a case as being obliged to.’ 

‘Yes, yes; I was speaking of when you are not 
obliged for any other reason than delight in the prospect 
of fame. I have thought many times lately that a thin 
widespread happiness, commencing now, and of a piece 
with the days of your life, is preferable to an anticipated 
heap far away in the future, and none now.’ 

‘ Why, that’s the very thing I said just now as being 
the principle of all ephemeral doers like myself.’ 

‘ Oh, I am sorry to have parodied you,’ she said with 
some confusion. ‘Yes, of course. That is what you 
meant about not trying to be famous.’ And she added, 
with the quickness of conviction characteristic of her 
mind : ‘ There is much littleness in trying to be great. 
A man must think a good deal of himself, and be 
conceited enough to believe in himself, before he tries 
at all.’ 

‘ But it is soon enough to say there is harm in a 
man’s thinking a good deal of himself when it is proved 
he has been thinking wrong, and too soon then some- 
times. Besides, we should not conclude that a man 
who strives earnestly for success does so with a strong 
sense of his own merit. He may see how little success 
has to do with merit, and his motive may be his very 
humility.’ 

This manner of treating her rather provoked Elfride. 
No sooner did she agree with him than he ceased to 
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seem to wish it, and took the other side. ‘Ah,’ she 
thought inwardly, * I shall have nothing to do with a 
man of this kind, though he is our visitor.’ 

‘ I think you will find,’ resumed Knight, pursuing 
the conversation more for the sake of finishing off his 
thoughts on the subject than for engaging her attention, 

‘ that in actual life it is merely a matter of instinct with 
men — this trying to push on. They awake to a recog- 
nition that they have, without premeditation, begun to 
try a little, and they say to themselves, “ Since I have 
tried thus much, I will try a little more.” They go on 
because they have begun.’ 

Elfride, in her turn, was not particularly attending 
to his words at this moment. She had, unconsciously 
to herself, a way of seizing any point in the remarks of 
an interlocutor which interested her, and dwelling upon 
it, and thinking thoughts of her own thereupon, totally 
oblivious of all that he might say in continuation. On 
such occasions she artlessly surveyed the person speak- 
ing; and then there was a time for a painter. Her 
eyes seemed to look at you, and past you, as you were 
then, into your future; and past your future into your 
eternity — not reading it, but gazing in an unused, un- 
conscious way — her mind still clinging to its original 
thought. 

This is how she was looking at Knight. 

Suddenly Elfride became conscious of what she was 
doing, and was painfully confused. 

‘ What were you so intent upon in me ? ’ he in- 
quired. 

‘ As far as I was thinking of you at all, I was think- 
ing how clever you are,’ she said, with a want of 
premeditation that was startling in its honesty and 
simplicity. 

Feeling restless now that she had so unwittingly 
spoken, she arose and stepped to the window, having 
heard the voices of her father and Mrs. Swancourt 
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coming up below the terrace. 1 Here they are,’ she said, 
going out. Knight walked out upon the lawn behind 
her. She stood upon the edge of the terrace, close to 
the stone balustrade, and looked towards the sun, 
hanging over a glade just now fair as Tempe’s vale, up 
which her father was walking. 

Knight could not help looking at her. The sun 
was within ten degrees of the horizon, and its warm 
light flooded her face and heightened the bright rose 
colour of her cheeks to a vermilion red, their moderate 
pink hue being only seen in its natural tone where the 
cheek curved round into shadow. The ends of her 
hanging hair softly dragged themselves backwards and 
forwards upon her shoulder as each faint breeze thrust 
against or relinquished it. Fringes and ribbons of her 
dress, moved by the same breeze, licked like tongues 
upon the parts around them, and fluttering forward 
from shady folds caught likewise their share of the 
lustrous orange glow. 

Mr. Swancourt shouted out a welcome to Knight 
from a distance of about thirty yards, and after a few 
preliminary words proceeded to a conversation of deep 
earnestness on Knight’s fine old family name, and 
theories as to lineage and intermarriage connected 
therewith. Knight’s portmanteau having in the mean- 
time arrived, they soon retired to prepare for dinner, 
which had been postponed two hours later than the 
usual time of that meal. 

An arrival was an event in the life of Elfride, now 
that they were again in the country, and that of Knight 
necessarily an engrossing one. And that evening she 
went to bed for the first time without thinking of 
Stephen at all. 


XVIII 


‘ He heard her musical pants.’ 

The old tower of West Endelstow Church had 
reached the last weeks of its existence. It was to 
be replaced by a new one from the designs of Mr. 
Hewby, the architect who had sent down Stephen. 
Planks and poles had arrived in the churchyard, iron 
bars had been thrust into the venerable crack ex- 
tending down the belfry wall to the foundation, the 
bells had been taken down, the owls had forsaken this 
home of their forefathers, and six iconoclasts in white 
fustian, to whom a cracked edifice was a species of 
Mumbo Jumbo, had taken lodgings in the village pre- 
vious to beginning the actual removal of the stones. 

This was the day after Knight’s arrival. To enjoy 
for the last time the prospect seaward from the summit, 
the vicar, Mrs. Swancourt, Knight, and Elfride, all 
ascended the winding turret — Mr. Swancourt stepping 
forward with many loud breaths, his wife struggling 
along silently, but suffering none the less. They 
had hardly reached the top when a large lurid cloud, 
palpably a reservoir of rain, thunder, and lightning, 
was seen to be advancing overhead from the north. 

The two cautious elders suggested an immediate 
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A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


return, and proceeded to put it in practice as regarded 
themselves. 

‘ Dear me, I wish I had not come up/ exclaimed 
Mrs. Swancourt. 

‘ We shall be slower than you two in going down/ 
the vicar said over his shoulder, ‘and so, don’t you 
start till we are nearly at the bottom, or you will run 
over us and break our necks somewhere in the darkness 
of the turret.’ 

Accordingly Elfride and Knight waited on the leads 
till the staircase should be dear. Knight was not in 
a talkative mood that morning. Elfride was rather 
wilful, by reason of his inattention, which she privately 
set down to his thinking her not worth talking to. 
Whilst Knight stood watching the rise of the cloud, 
she sauntered to the other side of the tower, and there 
remembered a giddy feat she had performed the year 
before. It was to walk round upon the parapet of 
the tower — which was quite without battlement or 
pinnacle, and presented a smooth flat surface about 
two feet wide, forming a pathway on all the four 
sides. Without reflecting in the least upon what she 
was doing she now stepped upon the parapet in the 
old way, and began walking along. 

* We are down, cousin Henry/ cried Mrs. Swam 
court up the turret. ‘ Follow us when you like.’ 

Knight turned and saw Elfride beginning her ele- 
vated promenade. His face flushed with mingled 
concern and anger at her rashness. 

‘ I certainly gave you credit for more common 
sense/ he said. 

She reddened a little and walked on. 

‘ Miss Swancourt, I insist upon your coming down/ 
he exclaimed. 

‘ I will in a minute. I am safe enough. I have 
done it often.’ 

At that moment, by reason of a slight perturbation 
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A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


his words had caused in her, Elfride’s foot caught itself 
in a little tuft of grass growing in a joint of the stone- 
work, and she almost lost her balance. Knight sprang 
forward with a face of horror. By what seemed the 
special interposition of a considerate Providence she 
tottered to the inner edge of the parapet instead of to 
the outer, and reeled over upon the lead roof two or 
three feet below the wall. 

Knight seized her as in a vice, and he said, panting, 
‘ That ever I should have met a woman fool enough to 
do a thing of that kind ! Good God, you ought to be 
ashamed of yourself ! ’ 

The close proximity of the Shadow of Death had 
made her sick and pale as a corpse before he spoke. 
Already lowered to that state, his words completely over- 
powered her, and she swooned away as he held her. 

Elfride’s eyes were not closed for more than forty 
seconds. She opened them, and remembered the posi- 
tion instantly. His face had altered its expression from 
stern anger to pity. But his severe remarks had rather 
frightened her, and she struggled to be free. 

1 If you can stand, of course you may,’ he said, and 
loosened his arms. ‘ I hardly know whether most to 
laugh at your freak or to chide you for its folly.’ 

She immediately sank upon the lead-work. Knight 
lifted her again. ‘ Are you hurt ? ’ he said. 

She murmured an incoherent expression, and tried 
to smile ; saying, with a fitful aversion of her face, ‘ I 
am only frightened. Put me down, do put me down ! ’ 

‘ But you can’t walk,’ said Knight. 

‘You don’t know that; how can you? I am only 
frightened, I tell you,’ she answered petulantly, and 
raised her hand to her forehead. Knight then saw that 
she was bleeding from a severe cut in her wrist, appa- 
rently where it had descended upon a salient corner of 
the lead-work. Elfride, too, seemed to perceive and 
feel this now for the first time, and for a minute nearly 

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A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


lbst consciousness again. Knight rapidly bound his 
handkerchief round the place, and to add to the com- 
plication, the thundercloud he had been watching 
began to shed some heavy drops of rain. Knight 
looked up and saw the vicar striding towards the 
house, and Mrs. Swancourt waddling beside him like a 
hard-driven duck. 

‘ As you are so faint, it will be much better to let 
me carry you down,’ said Knight ; 4 or at any rate 
inside out of the rain.’ But her objection to be lifted 
made it impossible for him to support her for more 
than five steps. 

4 This is folly, great folly,’ he exclaimed, setting her 
down. 

* Indeed ! ’ she murmured, with tears in her eyes. 
4 I say I will not be carried, and you say this is folly ! ’ 

4 So it is.’ 

‘ No, it isn’t ! ’ 

‘ It is folly, I think. At any rate, the origin of it 
all is.’ 

‘ I don’t agree to it. And you needn’t get so angry 
with me; I am not worth it.’ 

‘ Indeed you are. You are worth the enmity of 
princes, as was said of such another. Now, then, will 
you clasp your hands behind my neck, that I may carry 
you down without hurting you ? ’ 

‘ No, no.’ 

4 You had better, or I shall foreclose.’ 

‘ What’s that ! ’ 

* Deprive you of your chance.’ 

Elfride gave a little toss. 

4 Now, don’t writhe so when I attempt to carry you.’ 

‘ I can’t help it.’ 

4 Then submit quietly.’ 

4 1 don’t care, I don’t care,’ she murmured in languid 
tones and with closed eyes. 

He took her into his arms, entered the turret, and 
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A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


with slow and cautious steps descended round and 
round. Then, with the gentleness of a nursing mother, 
he attended to the cut on her arm. During his pro- 
gress through the operations of wiping it and binding 
it up anew, her face changed its aspect from pained 
indifference to something like bashful interest, inter- 
spersed with small tremors and shudders of a trifling 
kind. 

In the centre of each pale cheek a small red spot 
the size of a wafer had now made its appearance, and 
continued to grow larger. Elfride momentarily ex- 
pected a recurrence to the lecture on her foolishness, 
but Knight said no more than this — 

1 Promise me never to walk on that parapet again.’ 

‘ It will be pulled down soon : so I do.’ In a few 
minutes she continued in a lower tone, and seriously, 
‘ You are familiar of course, as everybody is, with those 
strange sensations we sometimes have, that our life for 
the moment exists in duplicate.’ 

* That we have lived through that moment before ? ’ 

‘ Or shall again. Well, I felt on the tower that 
something similar to that scene is again to be common 
to us both.’ 

‘ God forbid ! ’ said Knight. ‘ Promise me that you 
will never again walk on any such place on any con- 
sideration.’ 

‘ I do.’ 

‘ That such a thing has not been before, we know. 
That it shall not be again, you vow. Therefore think 
no more of such a foolish fancy.’ 

There had fallen a great deal of rain, but unaccom- 
panied by lightning. A few minutes longer, and the 
storm had ceased. 

* Now, take my arm, please.’ 

‘ Oh no, it is not necessary.’ This relapse into 
wilfulness was because he had again connected the 
epithet foolish with her. 


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A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


‘Nonsense: it is quite necessary; it will rain again 
directly, and you are not half recovered.’ And without 
more ado Knight took her hand, drew it under his arm, 
and held it there so fitmly that she could not have 
removed it without a struggle. Feeling like a colt in 
a halter for the first time, at thus being led along, yet 
afraid to be angry, it was to her great relief that she saw 
the carriage coming round the corner to fetch them. 

Her fall upon the roof was necessarily explained to 
some extent upon their entering the house ; but both 
forbore to mention a word of what she had been doing 
to cause such an accident. During the remainder of 
the afternoon Elfride was invisible; but at dinner-time 
she appeared as bright as ever. 

In the drawing-room, after having been exclusively 
engaged with Mr. and Mrs. Swancourt through the 
intervening hour, Knight again found himself thrown 
with Elfride. She had been looking over a chess 
problem in one of the illustrated periodicals. 

* You like chess, Miss Swancourt ? ’ 

‘Yes. It is my favourite scientific game; indeed, 
excludes every other. Do you play ? ’ 

‘ I have played ; though not lately.’ 

‘Challenge him, Elfride,’ said the vicar heartily. 
‘ She plays very well for a lady, Mr. Knight.’ 

‘ Shall we play ? ’ asked Elfride tentatively. 

‘ Oh, certainly. I shall be delighted.’ 

The game began. Mr. Swancourt had forgotten a 
similar performance with Stephen Smith the year before. 
Elfride had not; but she had begun to take for her 
maxim the undoubted truth that the necessity of con- 
tinuing faithful to Stephen, without suspicion, dictated a 
fickle behaviour almost as imperatively as fickleness itself ; 
a fact, however, which would give a startling advantage to 
the latter quality should it ever appear. 

Knight, by one of those inexcusable oversights which 
will sometimes afflict the best of players, placed his rook 
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A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


in the arms of one of her pawns. It was her first 
advantage. She looked triumphant — even ruthless. 

‘ By George ! what was I thinking of ? ’ said Knight 
quietly ; and then dismissed all concern at his accident. 

* Club laws we’ll have, won’t we, Mr. Knight ? ’ said 
Elfride suasively. 

‘ Oh yes, certainly,’ said Mr. Knight, a thought, 
however, just occurring to his mind, that he had two 
or three times allowed her to replace a man on her 
religiously assuring him that such a move was an 
absolute blunder. 

She immediately took up the unfortunate rook and 
the contest proceeded, Elfride having now rather the 
better of the game. Then he won the exchange, re- 
gained his position, and began to press her hard. Elfride 
grew flurried, and placed her queen on his remaining 
rook’s file. 

1 There — how stupid ! Upon my word, I did not 
see your rook. Of course nobody but a fool would have 
put a queen there knowingly ! ’ 

She spoke excitedly, half expecting her antagonist to 
give her back the move. 

‘ Nobody, of course,’ said Knight serenely, and 
stretched out his hand towards his royal victim. 

‘ It is not very pleasant to have it taken advantage 
of, then,’ she said with some vexation. 

‘ Club laws, I think you said ? ’ returned Knight 
blandly, and mercilessly appropriating the queen. 

She was on the brink of pouting, but was ashamed 
to show it ; tears almost stood in her eyes. She had 
been trying so hard — so very hard — thinking and 
thinking till her brain was in a whirl; and it seemed 
so heartless of him to treat her so, after all. 

* I think it is ’ she began. 

‘ What ? ’ 

— ‘ Unkind to take advantage of a pure mistake I 
make in that way.’ 


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A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


‘ I lost my rook by even a purer mistake/ said 
the enemy in an inexorable tone, without lifting his 
eyes. 

‘Yes, but ’ However, as his logic was abso- 

lutely unanswerable, she merely registered a protest. 

‘ I cannot endure those cold-blooded ways of clubs and 
professional players, like Staunton and Morphy. Just 
as if it really mattered whether you have raised your 
fingers from a man or no ! ’ 

Knight smiled as pitilessly as before, and they 
went on in silence. 

‘ Checkmate/ said Knight. 

‘ Another game/ said Elfride peremptorily, and look- 
ing very warm. 

‘ With all my heart/ said Knight. 

‘ Checkmate/ said Knight again at the end of forty 
minutes. 

‘ Another game/ she returned resolutely. 

‘ 111 give you the odds of a bishop/ Knight said to 
her kindly. 

‘ No, thank you/ Elfride replied in a tone intended 
for courteous indifference ; but, as a fact, very cavalier 
indeed. 

‘ Checkmate/ said her opponent without the least 
emotion. 

Oh, the difference between Elfride’s condition of 
mind now, and when she purposely made blunders 
that Stephen Smith might win ! 

It was bedtime. Her mind as distracted as if it 
would throb itself out of her head, she went off to her 
chamber, full of mortification at being beaten time after 
time when she herself was the aggressor. Having for 
two or three years enjoyed the reputation throughout 
the globe of her father’s brain — which almost con- 
stituted her entire world — of being an excellent player, 
this fiasco was intolerable ; for unfortunately the person 
most dogged in the belief in a false reputation is always 
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A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


that one, the possessor, who has the best means of 
knowing that it is not true. 

In bed no sleep came to soothe her ; that gentle thing 
being the very middle-of-summer friend in this respect 
of flying away at the merest troublous cloud. After 
lying awake till two o’clock an idea seemed to strike 
her. She softly arose, got a light, and fetched a Chess 
Praxis from the library. Returning and sitting up in 
bed, she diligently studied the volume till the clock 
struck five, and her eyelids felt thick and heavy. She 
then extinguished the light and lay down again. 

‘You look pale, Elfride,’ said Mrs. Swancourt the 
next morning at breakfast. ‘ Isn’t she, cousin Harry ? ’ 

A young girl who is scarcely ill at all can hardly help 
becoming so when /egarded as such by all eyes turning 
upon her at the table in obedience to some remark. 
Everybody looked at Elfride. She certainly was pale. 

‘ Am I pale ? ’ she said with a faint smile. ‘ I did 
not sleep much. I could not get rid of armies of 
bishops and knights, try how I would.’ 

‘ Chess is a bad thing just before bedtime ; especially 
for excitable people like yourself, dear. Don’t ever 
play late again.’ 

‘ I’ll play early instead. Cousin Knight,’ she said 
in imitation of Mrs. Swancourt, ‘ will you oblige me in 
something ? ’ 

‘ Even to half my kingdom.’ 

‘ Well, it is to play one game more. 

‘ When ? ’ 

‘ Now, instantly; the moment we have breakfasted. 

‘ Nonsense, Elfride,’ said her father. ‘ Making your- 
self a slave to the game like that.’ 

* But I want to, papa ! Honestly, I am restless at 
having been so ignominiously overcome. And Mr 
Knight doesn’t mind. So what harm can there be ? ’ 

‘ Let us play, by all means, if you wish it,’ said 
Knight. 


199 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


So, when breakfast was over, the combatants with 
drew to the quiet of the library, and the door was 
closed. Elfride seemed to have an idea that her con- 
duct was rather ill-regulated and startlingly free from 
conventional restraint. And worse, she fancied upon 
Knight’s face a slightly amused look at her proceedings. 

* You think me foolish, I suppose,’ she said reck- 
lessly; ‘but I want to do my very best just once, and 
see whether I can overcome you.’ 

‘ Certainly : nothing more natural. Though I am 
afraid it is not the plan adopted by women of the 
world after a defeat.’ 

* Why, pray ? ’ 

‘ Because they know that as good as overcoming is 
skill in effacing recollection of being overcome, and 
turn their attention to that entirely.’ 

‘ I am wrong again, of course.’ 

‘ Perhaps your wrong is more pleasing than their 
right.’ 

‘ I don’t quite know whether you mean that, or 
whether you are laughing at me,’ she said, looking 
doubtingly at him, yet inclining to accept the more 
flattering interpretation. ‘ I am almost sure you think 
it vanity in me to think I am a match for you. Well, 
if you do, I say that vanity is no crime in such a case.’ 

‘ Well, perhaps not. Though it is hardly a virtue.’ 

* Oh yes, in battle ! Nelson’s bravery lay in his 
vanity.’ 

‘ Indeed ! Then so did his death.’ 

Oh no, no ! For it is written in the book of the 
prophet Shakespeare — 

“ Fear and be slain? no worse can come to fight ; 

And fight and die, is death destroying death ! 

And down they sat, and the contest began, Elfride 
having the first move. The game progressed. Elfride’s 
heart beat so violently that she could not sit still. Her 
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A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


dread was lest he should hear it. And he did discover 
it at last — some flowers upon the table being set throb- 
bing by its pulsations. 

‘ I think we had better give over,’ said Knight, 
looking at her gently. ‘ It is too much for you, I know. 
Let us write down the position, and finish another 
time.’ 

‘ No, please not,’ she implored. ‘ I should not rest 
if I did not know the result at once. It is your move.’ 

Ten minutes passed. 

She started up suddenly. ‘ I know what you are 
doing ? ’ she cried, an angry colour upon her cheeks, 
and her eyes indignant. ‘ You were thinking of letting 
me win to please me ! * 

‘ I don’t mind owning that I was,’ Knight responded 
phlegmatically, and appearing all the more so by contrast 
with her own turmoil. 

‘ But you must not ! I won’t have it.’ 

‘ Very well.’ 

‘ No, that will not do ; I insist that you promise not 
to do any such absurd thing. It is insulting me ! ’ 

‘ Very well, madam. I won’t do any such absurd 
thing. You shall not win.’ 

‘ That is to be proved ! ’ she returned proudly ; and 
the play went on. 

Nothing is now heard but the ticking of a quaint old 
timepiece on the summit of a bookcase. Ten minutes 
pass ; he captures her knight ; she takes his knight, and 
looks a very Rhadamanthus. 

More minutes tick away; she takes his pawn and 
has the advantage, showing her sense of it rather 
prominently. 

Five minutes more : he takes her bishop : she brings 
things even by taking his knight. 

Three minutes : she looks bold, and takes his queen: 
he looks placid, and takes hers. 

Eight or ten minutes pass : he takes a pawn ; she 
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utters a little pooh ! but not the ghost of a pawn can 
she take in retaliation. 

Ten minutes pass : he takes another pawn and says, 
* Check ! ’ She flushes, extricates herself by capturing 
his bishop, and looks triumphant. He immediately 
takes her bishop : she looks surprised. 

Five minutes longer : she makes a dash and takes 
his only remaining bishop; he replies by taking her 
only remaining knight. 

Two minutes : he gives check ; her mind is now in 
a painful state of tension, and she shades her face with 
her hand. 

Yet a few minutes more : he takes her rook and 
checks again. She literally trembles now lest an artful 
surprise she has in store for him shall be anticipated 
by the artful surprise he evidently has in store for her. 

Five minutes : ‘ Checkmate in two moves ! 9 exclaims 
Elfride. 

* If you can,’ says Knight. 

‘ Oh, I have miscalculated ; that is cruel ! ’ 

‘ Checkmate,’ says Knight ; and the victory is won. 

Elfride arose and turned away without letting him see 
her face. Once in the hall she ran upstairs and into 
her room, and flung herself down upon her bed, weeping 
bitterly. 

‘ Where is Elfride ? ’ said her father at luncheon. 

Knight listened anxiously for the answer. He had 
been hoping to see her again before this time. 

‘ She isn’t well, sir,’ was the reply. 

Mrs. Swancourt rose and left the room, going 
upstairs to Elfride’s apartment. 

At the door was Unity, who occupied in the new 
establishment a position between young lady’s maid 
and middle-housemaid. 

‘ She is sound asleep, ma’am,’ Unity whispered. 

Mrs. Swancourt opened the door. Elfride was lying 
202 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


full-dressed on the bed, her face hot and red, her arms 
thrown abroad. At intervals of a minute she tossed 
restlessly from side to side, and indistinctly moaned 
words used in the game of chess. 

Mrs. Swancourt had a turn for doctoring, and felt 
her pulse. It was twanging like a harp-string, at the 
rate of nearly a hundred and fifty a minute. Softly 
moving the sleeping girl to a little less cramped posi- 
tion, she went downstairs again. 

‘ She is asleep now,’ said Mrs. Swancourt. ‘ She 
does not seem very well. Cousin Knight, what were 
you thinking of? her tender brain won’t bear cudgelling 
like your great head. You should have strictly for- 
bidden her to play again.’ 

In truth, the essayist’s experience of the nature of 
young women was far less extensive than his abstract 
knowledge of them led himself and others to believe. 
He could pack them into sentences like a workman, but 
practically was nowhere. 

‘ I am indeed sorry,’ said Knight, feeling even more 
than he expressed. ‘ But surely, the young lady knows 
best what is good for her ! ’ 

‘ Bless you, that’s just what she doesn’t know. She 
never thinks of such things, does she, Christopher? 
Her father and I have to command her and keep her 
in order, as you would a child. She will say things 
worthy of a French epigrammatist, and act like a robin 
in a greenhouse. But I think we will send for Dr. 
Granson — there can be no harm.’ 

A man was straightway despatched on horseback 
to Castle Boterel, and the gentleman known as Dr. 
Granson came in the course of the afternoon. He 
pronounced her nervous system to be in a decided 
state of disorder; forwarded some soothing draught, 
and gave orders that on no account whatever was she 
to play chess again. 

The next morning Knight, much vexed with himself, 
203 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


waited with a curiously compounded feeling for her 
entry to breakfast. The women servants came in to 
prayers at irregular intervals, and as each entered, he 
could not, to save his life, avoid turning his head with 
the hope that she might be Elfride. Mr. Swancourt 
began reading without waiting for her. Then some- 
body glided in noiselessly ; Knight softly glanced up : 
it was only the little kitchen-maid. Knight thought 
reading prayers a bore. 

He went out alone, and for almost the first time failed 
to recognize that holding converse with Nature’s charms 
was not solitude. On nearing the house again he per- 
ceived his young friend crossing a slope by a path which 
ran into the one he was following in the angle of the 
field. Here they met. Elfride was at once exultant 
and abashed : coming into his presence had upon her 
the effect of entering a cathedral. 

Knight had his note-book in his hand, and had, in 
fact, been in the very act of writing therein when they 
came in view of each other. He left off in the midst 
of a sentence, and proceeded to inquire warmly con- 
cerning her state of health. She said she was perfectly 
well, and indeed had never looked better. Her health 
was as inconsequent as her actions. Her lips were red, 
without the polish that cherries have, and their redness 
margined with the white skin in a clearly defined line, 
which had nothing of jagged confusion in it. Altogether 
she stood as the last person in the world to be knocked 
over by a game of chess, because too ephemeral-looking 
to play one. 

‘ Are you taking notes ? ’ she inquired with an 
alacrity plainly arising less from interest in the subject . 
than from a wish to divert his thoughts from herself. 

‘Yes; I was making an entry. And with your 
permission I will complete it.’ Knight then stood still 
and wrote. Elfride remained beside him a moment, 
and afterwards walked on. 

204 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


{ I should like to see all the secrets that are in that 
book,’ she gaily flung back to him over her shoulder. 

‘ I don’t think you would find much to interest you.’ 

‘ 1 know I should.’ 

1 Then of course I have no more to say.’ 

‘ But I would ask this question first. Is it a book 
of mere facts concerning journeys and expenditure, and 
so on, or a book of thoughts ? ’ 

‘ Well, to tell the truth, it is not exactly either. 
It consists for the most part of jottings for articles 
and essays, disjointed and disconnected, of no possible 
interest to anybody but myself.’ 

‘ It contains, I suppose, your developed thoughts in 
embryo ? ’ 

‘ Yes.’ 

‘ If they are interesting when enlarged to the size 
of an article, what must they be in their concentrated 
form ? Pure rectified spirit, above proof ; before it is 
lowered to be fit for human consumption : “ words 
that burn ” indeed.’ 

‘ Rather like a balloon before it is inflated : flabby, 
shapeless, dead. You could hardly read them.’ 

‘ May I try ? ’ she said coaxingly. ‘ I wrote my poor 
romance in that way — I mean in bits, out of doors — 
and I should like to see whether your way of entering 
things is the same as mine.’ 

‘ Really, that’s rather an awkward request. I sup- 
pose I can hardly refuse now you have asked so 
directly; but ’ 

‘You think me ill-mannered in asking. But does 
not this justify me — your writing in my presence, 
Mr. Knight? If I had lighted upon your book by 
chance, it would have been different ; but you stand 
before me, and say, “Excuse me,” without caring 
whether I do or not, and write on, and then tell me 
they are not private facts but public ideas.’ 

‘ Very well, Miss Swancourt. If you really must see, 
205 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


the consequences be upon your own head. Remember, 
my advice to you is to leave my book alone.’ 

‘ But with that caution I have your permission ? ’ 

‘Yes.’ 

She hesitated a moment, looked at his hand contain- 
ing the book, then laughed, and saying, ‘ I must see 
it,’ withdrew it from his fingers. 

Knight rambled on towards the house, leaving her 
standing in the path turning over the leaves. By the 
time he had reached the wicket-gate he saw that she 
had moved, and waited till she came up. 

Elfride had closed the note-book, and was carrying 
it disdainfully by the corner between her finger and 
thumb; her face wore a nettled look. She silently 
extended the volume towards him, raising her eyes no 
higher than her hand was lifted. 

‘ Take it/ said Elfride quickly. ‘ I don’t want to 
read it.’ 

‘ Could you understand it ? ’ said Knight. 

‘ As far as I looked. But I didn’t care to read 
much.’ 

‘ Why, Miss Swancourt ? ’ 

‘ Only because I didn’t wish to — that’s all.’ 

‘ I warned you that you might not.’ 

‘ Yes, but I never supposed you would have put me 
there.’ 

‘Your name is not mentioned once within the four 
corners.’ 

* Not my name — I know that.’ 

‘ Nor your description, nor anything by which any- 
body would recognize you.’ 

‘ Except myself. For what is this ? ’ she exclaimed, 
taking it from him and opening a page. ‘August 7. 
That’s the day before yesterday. But I won’t read it,’ 
Elfride said, closing the book again with pretty hauteur. 
‘ Why should I ? I had no business to ask to see your 
book, and it serves me right.’ 

206 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


Knight hardly recollected what he had written, and 
turned over the book to see. He came to this : 

‘Aug. 7. Girl gets into her teens, and her self- 
consciousness is born. After a certain interval passed 
in infantine helplessness, it begins to act. Simple, 
young, and inexperienced at first. Persons of observa- 
tion can tell to a nicety how old this consciousness is 
by the skill it has acquired in the art necessary to its 
success — the art of hiding itself. Generally begins 
career by actions which are popularly termed showing- 
off. Me'thod adopted depends in each case upon the 
disposition, rank, residence, of the young lady attempt- 
ing it. Town-bred girl will utter some moral paradox 
on fast men, or love. Country miss adopts the more 
material media of taking a ghastly fence, whistling, or 
making your blood run cold by appearing to risk her 
neck. (Mem. On Endelstow Tower.) 

4 An innocent vanity is of course the origin of these 
displays. “ Look at me,” say these youthful beginners 
in womanly artifice, without reflecting whether or not it 
be to their advantage to show so very much of them- 
selves. (Amplify and correct for paper on Artless 
Arts.) ’ 

4 Yes, I remember now,’ said Knight. 4 The notes 
were certainly suggested by your manoeuvre on the 
church tower. But you must not think too much of 
such random observations/ he continued encouragingly, 
as he noticed her injured looks. 4 A mere fancy passing 
through my head assumes a factitious importance to you, 
because it has been made permanent by being written 
down. All mankind think thoughts as bad as those 
of people they most love on earth, but such thoughts 
never getting embodied on paper, it becomes assumed 
that they never existed. I daresay that you yourself 
have thought some disagreeable thing or other of me, 
which would seem just as bad as this if written. I 
challenge you, now, to tell me.’ 

207 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


* The worst thing I have thought of you ? * 

‘ Yes.’ 

‘ I must not.’ 

‘ Oh yes/ 

‘ I thought you were rather round-shouldered.’ 

Knight looked slightly redder. 

‘ And that there was a little bald spot on the top ol 
your head.’ 

‘ Heh-heh ! Two ineradicable defects,’ said Knight, 
there being a faint ghastliness discernible in his laugh. 
* They are much worse in a lady’s eye than being 
thought self-conscious, I suppose.’ 

‘ Ah, that’s very fine,’ she said, too inexperienced to 
perceive her hit, and hence not quite disposed to for- 
give his notes. ‘You alluded to me in that entry as 
if I were such a child, too. Everybody does that. I 
cannot understand it. I am quite a woman, you know. 
How old do you think I am ? ’ 

‘ How old ? Why, seventeen, I should say. All 
girls are seventeen.’ 

‘You are wrong. I am nearly nineteen. Which 
class of women do you like best, those who seem 
younger, or those who seem older than they are ? ’ 

‘ Off-hand I should be inclined to say those who 
seem older.’ 

So it was not Elfride’s class. 

‘ But it is well known,’ she said eagerly, and there 
was something touching in the artless anxiety to be 
thought much of which she revealed by her words, ‘ that 
the slower a nature is to develop, the richer the nature. 
Youths and girls who are men and women before they 
come of age are nobodies by the time that backward 
people have shown their full compass.’ 

‘Yes,’ said Knight thoughtfully. ‘There is really 
something in that remark. But at the risk of offence I 
must remind you that you there take it for granted that 
the woman behind her time at a given age has not 
208 


A PAIR OF BLUE SfES 


reached the end of her tether. Her backwardness may 
be not because she is slow to develop, but because she 
soon exhausted her capacity for developing.’ 

Elfride looked disappointed. By this time they 
were indoors. Mrs. Swancourt, to whom match-making 
by any honest means was meat and drink, had now a 
little scheme of that nature concerning this pair. The 
morning-room, in which they both expected to find her, 
was empty ; the old lady having, for the above reason, 
vacated it by the second door as they entered by the 
first. 

Knight went to the chimney-piece, and carelessly 
surveyed two portraits on ivory. 

‘ Though these pink ladies had very rudimentary 
features, judging by what I see here,’ he observed, ‘ they 
had unquestionably beautiful heads of hair.’ 

‘Yes; and that is everything,’ said Elfride, possibly 
conscious of her own, possibly not. 

‘ Not everything; though a great deal, certainly.’ 

* Which colour do you like best ? ’ she ventured 
to ask. 

‘ More depends on its abundance than on its colour.’ 

‘ Abundances being equal, may I inquire your 
favourite colour ? ’ 

‘ Dark.’ 

‘ I mean for women,’ she said, with the minutest fall 
of countenance, and a hope that she had been mis- 
understood. 

‘ So do I,’ Knight replied. 

It was impossible for any man not to know the 
colour of Elfride’s hair. In women who wear it plainly 
such a feature may be overlooked by men not given to 
ocular intentness. But hers was always in the way. 
You saw her hair as far as you could see her sex, and 
knew that it was the palest brown. She knew instantly 
that Knight, being perfectly aware of this, had an inde- 
pendent standard of admiration in the matter. 

209 


o 


A P^IR OF BLUE EYES 

Elfride was thoroughly vexed. She could not but be 
struck with the honesty of his opinions, and the worst of 
it was, that the more they went against her, the more she 
respected them. And now, like a reckless gambler, she 
hazarded her last and best treasure. Her eyes : they 
were her all now. 

‘ What coloured eyes do you like best, Mr. Knight ? * 
she said slowly. 

* Honestly, or as a compliment ? * 

‘ Of course honestly ; I don’t want anybody’s com- 
pliment ! ’ 

And yet Elfride knew otherwise : that a compliment 
or word of approval from that man then would have 
been like a well to a famished Arab. 

‘ I prefer hazel,’ he said serenely. 

She had played and lost again. 


XIX 


‘Love was in the next degree.' 

Knight had none of those light familiarities of 
speech which, by judicious touches of epigrammatic 
flattery, obliterate a woman’s recollection of the speaker’s 
abstract opinions. So no more was said by either on 
the subject of hair, eyes, or development. Elfride’s 
mind had been impregnated with sentiments of her 
own smallness to an uncomfortable degree of distinct- 
ness, and her discomfort was visible in her face. The 
whole tendency of the conversation latterly had been 
to quietly but surely disparage her ; and she was fain to 
take Stephen into favour in self-defence. He would 
not have been so unloving, she said, as to admire an 
idiosyncrasy and features different from her own. 
True, Stephen had declared he loved her : Mr. Knight 
had never done anything of the sort. Somehow this 
did not mend matters, and the sensation of her small- 
ness in Knight’s eyes still remained. Had the posi- 
tion been reversed — had Stephen loved her in spite 
of a differing taste, and had Knight been indifferent 
in spite of her resemblance to his ideal, it would 
have engendered far happier thoughts. As matters 
stood, Stephen’s admiration might have its root in a 
2 1 1 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


blindness the result of passion. Perhaps any keen 
man’s judgment was condemnatory of her. 

During the remainder of Saturday they were more 
or less thrown with their seniors, and no conversation 
arose which was exclusively their own. When Elfride 
was in bed that night her thoughts recurred to the 
same subject. At one moment she insisted that it 
was ill-natured of him to speak so decisively as he had 
done ; the next, that it was sterling honesty. 

* Ah, what a poor nobody I am ! ’ she said, sighing. 

‘ People like him, who go about the great world, don’t 
care in the least what I am like either in mood or 
feature.’ 

Perhaps a man who has got thoroughly into a 
woman’s mind in this manner, is half way to her heart ; 
the distance between those two stations is proverbially 
short. 

‘ And are you really going away this week ? ’ said 
Mrs. Swancourt to Knight on the following evening, 
which was Sunday. 

They were all leisurely climbing the hill to the church, 
where a last service was now to be held at the rather 
exceptional time of evening instead of in the afternoon, 
previous to the demolition of the ruinous portions. 

‘ I am intending to cross to Cork from Bristol,’ re- 
turned Knight ; ‘ and then I go on to Dublin.’ 

‘ Return this way, and stay a little longer with us,’ 
said the vicar. * A week is nothing. We have hardly 
been able to realize your presence yet. I remember a 
story which ’ 

The vicar suddenly stopped. He had forgotten it 
was Sunday, and would probably have gone on in 
his week-day mode of thought had not a turn in the 
breeze blown the skirt of his college gown within the 
range of his vision, and so reminded him. He at 
once diverted the current of his narrative with the 
dexterity the occasion demanded. 

2 is 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


‘ The story of the Levite who journeyed to Bethlehem- 
judah, from which I took my text the Sunday before last, 
is quite to the point,’ he continued, with the pronun- 
ciation of a man who, far from having intended to tell a 
week-day story a moment earlier, had thought of nothing 
but Sabbath matters for several weeks. ‘ What did he 
gain after all by his restlessness ? Had he remained in 
the city of the Jebusites, and not been so anxious for 
Gibeah, none of his troubles would have arisen.’ 

‘ But he had wasted five days already,’ said Knight, 
closing his eyes to the vicar’s commendable diversion. 
‘ His fault lay in beginning the tarrying system ori- 
ginally.’ 

‘ True, true ; my illustration fails.’ 

* But not the hospitality which prompted the story.’ 

* So you are to come just the same,’ urged Mrs. 
Swancourt, for she had seen an almost imperceptible 
fall of countenance in her stepdaughter at Knight’s 
announcement. 

Knight half promised to call on his return journey; 
but the uncertainty with which he spoke was quite 
enough to fill Elfride with a regretful interest in all he 
did during the few remaining hours. The curate having 
already officiated twice that day in the two churches, 
Mr. Swancourt had undertaken the whole of the even- 
ing service, and Knight read the lessons for him. The 
sun streamed across from the dilapidated west window, 
and lighted all the assembled worshippers with a golden 
glow, Knight as he read being illuminated by the same 
mellow lustre. Elfride at the organ regarded him with 
a throbbing sadness of mood which was fed by a sense 
of being far removed from his sphere. As he went delibe- 
rately through the chapter appointed — a portion of the 
history of Elijah — and ascended that magnificent climax 
of the wind, the earthquake, the fire, and the still small 
voice, his deep tones echoed past with such apparent 
disregard of her existence, that his presence inspired her 
213 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


with a forlorn sense of unapproachableness, which his 
absence would hardly have been able to cause. 

At the same time, turning her face for a moment to 
catch the glory of the dying sun as it fell on his form, her 
eyes were arrested by the shape and aspect of a woman in 
the west gallery. It was the bleak barren countenance 
of the widow Jethway, whom Elfride had not seen much 
of since the morning of her return with Stephen Smith. 
Possessing the smallest of competencies, this unhappy 
woman appeared to spend her life in journeyings be- 
tween Endelstow Churchyard and that of a village near 
Southampton, where her father and mother were laid. 

She had not attended the service here for a consider- 
able time, and she now seemed to have a reason for 
her choice of seat. From the gallery window the tomb 
of her son was plainly visible — standing as the nearest 
object in a prospect which was closed outwardly by the 
changeless horizon of the sea. 

The streaming rays, too, flooded her face, now bent 
towards Elfride with a hard and bitter expression that 
the solemnity of the place raised to a tragic dignity it did 
not intrinsically possess. The girl resumed her normal 
attitude with an added disquiet. 

Elfride’s emotion was cumulative, and after a while 
would assert itself on a sudden. A slight touch was 
enough to set it free — a poem, a sunset, a cunningly 
contrived chord of music, a vague imagining, being the 
usual accidents of its exhibition. The longing for 
Knight’s respect, which was leading up to an incipient 
yearning for his love, made the present conjuncture a 
sufficient one. Whilst kneeling down previous to 
leaving, when the sunny streaks had gone upward to 
the roof, and the lower part of the church was in 
soft shadow, she could not help thinking of Coleridge’s 
morbid poem ‘ The Three Graves,’ and shuddering as 
she wondered if Mrs. Jethway were cursing her, she 
wept as if her heart would break. 

214 


A PAIR Ob BLUE EYES 

They came out of church just as the sun went down, 
leaving the landscape like a platform from which an 
eloquent speaker has retired, and nothing remains for 
the audience to do but to rise and go home. Mr. and 
Mrs. Swancourt went off in the carriage, Knight and 
Elfride preferring to walk, as the skilful old matchmaker 
had imagined. They descended the hill together. 

‘ I liked your reading, Mr. Knight,’ Elfride presently 
found herself saying. ‘ You read better than papa.’ 

‘ I will praise anybody that will praise me. You played 
excellently, Miss Swancourt, and very correctly.’ 

‘ Correctly — yes.’ 

‘ It must be a great pleasure to you to take an active 
part in the service.’ 

‘ I want to be able to play with more feeling. But I 
have not a good selection of music, sacred or secular. 
I wish I had a nice little music-library — well chosen, 
and that the only new pieces sent me were those of 
genuine merit.’ 

* I am glad to hear such a wish from you. It is 
extraordinary how many women have no honest love of 
music as an end and not as a means, even leaving out 
those who have nothing in them. They mostly like it 
for its accessories. I have never met a woman who 
loves music as do ten or a dozen men I know.’ 

* How would you draw the line between women with 
something and women with nothing in them ? ’ 

‘Well,’ said Knight, reflecting a moment, ‘I mean 
by nothing in them those who don’t care about any- 
thing solid. This is an instance : I knew a man who 
had a young friend in whom he was much interested ; 
in fact, they were going to be married. She was seem- 
ingly poetical, and he offered her a choice of two 
editions of the British poets, which she pretended to 
want badly. He said, “ Which of them would you like 
best for me to send ? ” She said, “ A pair of the prettiest 
earrings in Bond Street, if you don’t mind, would be 
215 


A PAIR OF EtLUE EYES 

nicer than either.” Now I call her a girl with not 
much in her but vanity ; and so do you, I daresay.’ 

‘ Oh yes,’ replied Elfride with an effort. 

Happening to catch a glimpse of her face as she was 
speaking, and noticing that her attempt at heartiness was 
a miserable failure, he appeared to have misgivings. 

‘You, Miss Swancourt, would not, under such cir- 
cumstances, have preferred the nicknacks ? ’ 

‘No, I don’t think I should, indeed,’ she stam- 
mered. 

‘ I’ll put it to you,’ said the inflexible Knight. 
‘ Which will you have of these two things of about 
equal value — the well-chosen little library of the best 
music you spoke of — bound in morocco, walnut case, 
lock and key — or a pair of the very prettiest earrings in 
Bond Street windows ? ’ 

‘ Of course the music,’ Elfride replied with forced 
earnestness. 

* You are quite certain ? ’ he said emphatically. 

‘ Quite,’ she faltered ; ‘ if I could for certain buy the 
earrings afterwards.’ 

Knight, somewhat blamably, keenly enjoyed sparring 
with the palpitating mobile creature, whose excitable 
nature made any such thing a species of cruelty. 

He looked at her rather oddly, and said, ‘ Fie ! ’ 

‘ Forgive me,’ she said, laughing a little, a little 
frightened, and blushing very deeply. 

‘ Ah, Miss Elfie, why didn’t you say at first, as any 
firm woman would have said, I am as bad as she, and 
shall choose the same ? ’ 

‘ I don’t know,’ said Elfride wofully, and with a 
distressful smile. 

‘ I thought you were exceptionally musical ? ’ 

‘ So I am, I think. But the test is so severe — quite 
painful.’ 

‘ I don’t understand.’ 

‘ Music doesn’t do any real good, or rather ’ 

216 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


* That is a thing to say, Miss Swancourt ! Why, 
what ’ 

‘ You don’t understand ! you don’t understand ! ’ 

‘ Why, what conceivable use is there in jimcrack 
jewellery ? ’ 

‘ No, no, no, no ! ’ she cried petulantly ; ‘ 1 didn’t 
mean what you think. I like the music best, only I 
like ’ 

‘ Earrings better — own it ! ’ he said in a teasing 
tone. ‘Well, I think I should have had the moral 
courage to own it at once, without pretending to an 
elevation I could not reach.’ 

Like the French soldiery, Elfride was not brave 
when on the defensive. So it was almost with tears in 
her eyes that she answered desperately : 

‘ My meaning is, that I like earrings best just now, 
because I lost one of my prettiest pair last year, and 
papa said he would not buy any more, or allow me to 
myself, because I was careless ; and now I wish I had 
some like them — that’s what my meaning is — indeed it 
is, Mr. Knight.’ 

‘ I am afraid I have been very harsh and rude,’ said 
Knight, with a look of regret at seeing how disturbed 
she was. ‘ But seriously, if women only knew how they 
ruin their good looks by such appurtenances, I am sure 
they would never want them.’ 

‘ They were lovely, and became me so ! ’ 

‘Not if they were like the ordinary hideous things 
women stuff their ears with nowadays — like the governor 
of a steam-engine, or a pair of scales, or gold gibbets 
and chains, and artists’ palettes, and compensation pen- 
dulums, and Heaven knows what besides.’ 

‘No; they were not one of those things. So pretty 
— like this,’ she said with eager animation. And she 
drew with the point of her parasol an enlarged view of 
one of the lamented darlings, to a scale that would have 
suited a giantess half-a-mile high. 
p 217 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


‘ * Yes, very pretty — very,’ said Knight dryly. 4 How 

did you come to lose such a precious pair of articles ? ’ 

4 I only lost one — nobody ever loses both at the 
same time.’ 

She made this remark with embarrassment, and a 
nervous movement of the fingers. Seeing that the loss 
occurred whilst Stephen Smith was attempting to kiss 
her for the first time on the cliff, her confusion was 
hardly to be wondered at. The question had been 
awkward, and received no direct answer. 

Knight seemed not to notice her manner. 

4 Oh, nobody ever loses both — I see. And certainly 
the fact that it wa.s a case of loss takes away all odour 
of vanity from your choice.’ 

4 As I never know whether you are in earnest, I 
don’t now,’ she said, looking up inquiringly at the hairy 
face of the oracle. And coming gallantly to her own 
rescue, 4 If I really seem vain, it is that I am only vain 
in my ways — not in my heart. The worst women are 
those vain in their hearts, and not in their ways.’ 

4 An adroit distinction. Well, they are certainly the 
more objectionable of the two,’ said Knight. 

4 Is vanity a mortal or a venial sin ? You know 
what life is : tell me.’ 

4 1 am very far from knowing what life is. A just con- 
ception of life is too large a thing to grasp during the 
short interval of passing through it.’ 

4 Will the fact of a woman being fond of jewellery be 
likely to make her life, in its higher sense, a failure ? ’ 

4 Nobody’s life is altogether a failure.’ 

‘Well, you know what I mean, even though my 
words are badly selected and commonplace,’ she said 
impatiently. 4 Because I utter commonplace words, 
you must not suppose I think only commonplace 
thoughts. My poor stock of words are like a limited 
number of rough moulds I have to cast all my materials 
in, good and bad ; and the novelty or delicacy of the 
2 18 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 

substance is often lost in the coarse triteness of the 
form/ 

‘ Very well ; I’ll believe that ingenious representa- 
tion. As to the subject in hand — lives which are 
failures — you need not trouble yourself. Anybody’s 
life may be just as romantic and strange and interest- 
ing if he or she fails as if he or she succeed. All the 
difference is, that the last chapter is wanting in the 
story. If a man of power tries to do a great deed, and 
just falls short of it by an accident not his fault, up to 
that time his history had as much in it as that of a 
great man who has done his great deed. It is whim- 
sical of the world to hold that particulars of how a lad 
went to school and so on should be as an interesting 
romance or as nothing to them, precisely in proportion 
to his after renown.’ 

They were walking between the sunset and the moon- 
rise. With the dropping of the sun a nearly full moon 
had begun to raise itself. Their shadows, as cast by the 
western glare, showed signs of becoming obliterated 
in the interest of a rival pair in the opposite direction 
which the moon was bringing to distinctness. 

‘ I consider my life to some extent a failure,’ said 
Knight again after a pause, during which he had noticed 
the antagonistic shadows. 

‘You! How?’ 

‘ I don’t precisely know. But in some way I have 
missed the mark.’ 

« Really ? To have done it is not much to be sad 
about, but to feel that you have done it must be a 
cause of sorrow. Am I right ? ’ 

‘ Partly, though not quite. For a sensation of being 
profoundly experienced serves as a sort of consolation 
to people who are conscious of having taken wrong 
turnings. Contradictory as it seems, there is nothing 
truer than that people who have always gone right don’t 
know half as much about the nature and ways of going 
219 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


right as those do who have gone wrong. However, it is 
not desirable for me to chill your summer-time by going 
into this.’ 

‘You have not told me even now if I am really 
vain.’ 

‘ If I say Yes, I shall offend you ; if I say No, you’ll 
think I don’t mean it,’ he replied, looking curiously 
into her face. 

‘ Ah, well,’ she replied, with a little breath of distress, 

* “ That which is exceeding deep, who will find it out ? ” 
I suppose I must take you as I do the Bible — find out 
and understand all I can ; and on the strength of that, 
swallow the rest in a lump, by simple faith. Think me 
vain, if you will. Worldly greatness requires so much 
littleness to grow up in, that an infirmity more or less 
is not a matter for regret.’ 

‘As regards women, I can’t say,’ answered Knight 
carelessly ; * but it is without doubt a misfortune for 
a man who has a living to get, to be born of a truly 
noble nature. A high soul will bring a man to the 
workhouse; so you may be right in sticking up for 
vanity.’ 

‘ No, no, I don’t do that,’ she said regretfully. 

* Mr. Knight, when you are gone, will you send me 
something you have written ? I think I should like to 
see whether you write as you have lately spoken, or in 
your better mood. Which is your true self — the cynic 
you have been this evening, or the nice philosopher you 
were up to to-night ? ’ 

‘ Ah, which ? You know as well as I.’ 

Their conversation detained them on the lawn and 
in the portico till the stars blinked out. Elfride flung 
back her head, and said idly — 

‘ There’s a bright star exactly over me.’ 

‘ Each bright star is overhead somewhere.’ 

‘Is it ? Oh yes, of course. Where is that one ? ’ 
and she pointed with her finger. 

220 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


‘That is poised like a white hawk over one of the 
Cape Verde Islands.’ 

‘ And that ? ’ 

‘ Looking down upon the source of the Nile.’ 

‘ And that lonely quiet-looking one ? ’ 

‘ He watches the North Pole, and has no less than 
the whole equator for his horizon. And that idle one 
low down upon the ground, that we have almost rolled 
away from, is in India — over the head of a young friend 
of mine, who very possibly looks at the star in our 
zenith, as it hangs low upon his horizon, and thinks of 
it as marking where his true love dwells.’ 

Elfride glanced at Knight with misgiving. Did he 
mean her? She could not see his features; but his 
attitude seemed to show unconsciousness. 

‘The star is over my head,’ she said with hesita- 
tion. 

‘ Or anybody else’s in England.’ 

‘ Oh yes, I see : ’ she breathed her relief. 

‘ His parents, I believe, are natives of this county. 
I don’t know them, though I have been in correspond- 
ence with him for many years till lately. Fortunately 
or unfortunately for him he fell in love, and then went 
to Bombay. Since that time I have heard very little of 
him.’ 

Knight went no further in his volunteered statement, 
and though Elfride at one moment was inclined to 
profit by the lessons in honesty he had just been giving 
her, the flesh was weak, and the intention dispersed 
into silence. There seemed a reproach in Knight’s 
blind words, and yet she was not able to clearly define 
any disloyalty that she had been guilty of. 


XX 

*A distant dearness in the hill’ 

KNIGHT turned his back upon the parish of 
Endelstow, and crossed over to Cork. 

One day of absence superimposed itself on another, 
and proportionately weighted his heart. He pushed on 
to the Lakes of Killarney, rambled amid their luxuriant 
woods, surveyed the infinite variety of island, hill, and 
dale there to be found, listened to the marvellous 
echoes of that romantic spot ; but altogether missed 
the glory and the dream he formerly found in such 
favoured regions. 

Whilst in the company of Elfride, her girlish pre- 
sence had not perceptibly affected him to any depth. 
He had not been conscious that her entry into his 
sphere had added anything to himself ; but now that 
she was taken away he was very conscious of a great 
deal being abstracted. The superfluity had become a 
necessity, and Knight was in love. 

Stephen fell in love with Elfride by looking at her : 
Knight by ceasing to do so. When or how the spirit 
entered into him he knew not : certain he was that 
when on the point of leaving Endelstow he had felt 
none of that exquisite nicety of poignant sadness 
222 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


natural to such severances, seeing how delightful a 
subject of contemplation Elfride had been ever since. 
Had he begun to love her when she met his eye after 
her mishap on the tower? He had simply thought 
her weak. Had he grown to love her whilst standing 
on the lawn brightened all over by the evening sun ? 
He had thought her complexion good : no more. Was 
it her conversation that had sown the seed? He had 
thought her words ingenious, and very creditable to a 
young woman, but not noteworthy. Had the chess- 
playing anything to do with it ? Certainly not : he had 
thought her at that time a rather conceited child. 

Knight’s experience was a complete disproof of the 
assumption that love always comes by glances of the 
eye and sympathetic touches of the fingers : that, like 
flame, it makes itself palpable at the moment of genera- 
tion. Not till they were parted, and she had become 
sublimated in his memory, could he be said to have 
even attentively regarded her. 

Thus, having passively gathered up images of her 
which his mind did not act upon till the cause of them 
was no longer before him, he appeared to himself to 
have fallen in love with her soul, which had tempor- 
arily assumed its disembodiment to accompany him 
on his way. 

She began to rule him so imperiously now that, 
accustomed to analysis, he almost trembled at the 
possible result of the introduction of this new force 
among the nicely adjusted ones of his ordinary life. 
He became restless : then he forgot all collateral sub- 
jects in the pleasure of thinking about her. 

Yet it must be said that Knight loved philosophi- 
cally rather than with romance. 

He thought of her manner towards him. Simplicity 
verges on coquetry. Was she flirting ? he said to him- 
self. No forcible translation of favour into suspicion 
was able to uphold such a theory. The performance 
223 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


had been too well done to be anything but real. It 
had the defects without which nothing is genuine. No 
actress of twenty years’ standing, no bald-necked lady 
whose earliest season ‘out’ was lost in the discreet 
mist of evasive talk, could have played before him the 
part of ingenuous girl as Elfride lived it. She had the 
little artful ways which partly make up ingenuousness. 

There are bachelors by nature and bachelors by 
circumstance : spinsters there doubtless are also of 
both kinds, though some think only those of the latter. 
However, Knight had been looked upon as a bachelor 
by nature. What was he coming to? It was very 
odd to himself to look at his theories on the subject 
of love, and reading them now by the full light of a 
new experience, to see how much more his sentences 
meant than he had felt them to mean when they were 
written. People often discover the real force of a trite 
old maxim only when it is thrust upon them by a 
chance adventure ; but Knight had never before known 
the case of a man v?ho learnt the full compass of his 
own epigrams by such means. 

He was intensely satisfied with one aspect of the 
affair. Inbred in him was an invincible objection to 
be any but the first comer in a woman’s heart. He 
had discovered within himself the condition that if 
ever he did make up his mind to marry, it must be 
on the certainty that no cropping out of inconvenient 
old letters, no bow and blush to a mysterious stranger 
casually met, should be a possible source of discom- 
posure. Knight’s sentiments were only the ordinary 
ones of a man of his age who loves genuinely, perhaps 
exaggerated a little by his pursuits. When men first 
love as lads, it is with the very centre of their hearts, 
nothing else being concerned in the operation. With 
added years, more of th« faculties attempt a partner- 
ship in the passion, till at Knight’s age the under- 
standing is fain to have a hand in it. It may as well 
224 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


be left out. A man in love setting up his brains as 
a gauge of his position is as one determining a ship’s 
longitude from a light at the mast-head. 

Knight argued from Elfride’s unwontedness of man- 
ner, which was matter of fact, to an unwontedness in 
love, which was matter of inference only. Increduks 
ks plus credules . ‘ Elfride,’ he said, ‘ had hardly looked 

upon a man till she saw me.’ 

He had never forgotten his severity to her because 
she preferred ornament to edification, and had since 
excused her a hundred times by thinking how natural 
to womankind was a love of adornment, and how 
necessary became a mild infusion of personal vanity 
to complete the delicate and fascinating dye of the 
feminine mind. So at the end of the week’s absence, 
which had brought him as far as Dublin, he resolved 
to curtail his tour, return to Endelstow, and commit 
himself by making a reality of the hypothetical offer 
of that Sunday evening. 

Notwithstanding that he had concocted a great deal 
of paper theory on social amenities and modern manners 
generally, the special ounce of practice was wanting, 
and now for his life Knight could not recollect whether 
it was considered correct to give a young lady personal 
ornaments before a regular engagement to marry had 
been initiated. But the day before leaving Dublin he 
looked around anxiously for a high-class jewellery estab- 
lishment, in which he purchased what he considered 
would suit her best. 

It was with a most awkward and unwonted feeling 
that after entering and closing the door of his room 
he sat down, opened the morocco case, and held up 
each of the fragile bits of gold-work before his eyes. 
Many things had become old to the solitary man of 
letters, but these were new, and he handled like a child 
an outcome of civilization which had never before been 
touched by his fingers. A sudden fastidious decision 

225 p 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


that the pattern chosen would not suit her after all 
caused him to rise in a flurry and tear down the street 
to change them for others. After a great deal of 
trouble in reselecting, during which his mind became 
so bewildered that the critical faculty on objects of art 
seemed to have vacated his person altogether, Knighl 
carried off another pair of ear-rings. These remained 
in his possession till the afternoon, when, after con- 
templating them fifty times with a growing misgiving 
that the last choice was worse than the first, he felt 
that no sleep would visit his pillow till he had im- 
proved upon his previous purchases yet again. In a 
perfect heat of vexation with himself for such tergiver- 
sation, he went anew to the shop-door, was absolutely 
ashamed to enter and give further trouble, went to 
another shop, bought a pair at an enormously increased 
price, because they seemed the very thing, asked the 
goldsmiths if they would take the other pair in exchange, 
was told that they could not exchange articles bought 
of another maker, paid down the money, and went off 
with the two pairs in his possession, wondering what 
on earth to do with the superfluous pair. He almost 
wished he could lose them, or that somebody would 
steal them, and was burdened with an interposing sense 
that, as a capable man, with true ideas of economy, he 
must necessarily sell them somewhere, which he did 
at last for a mere song. Mingled with a blank feeling 
of a whole day being lost to him in running about the 
city on this new and extraordinary class of errand, and 
of several pounds being lost through his bungling, was 
a slight sense of satisfaction that he had emerged for 
ever from his antediluvian ignorance on the subject of 
ladies’ jewellery, as well as secured a truly artistic pro- 
duction at last. During the remainder of that day he 
scanned the ornaments of every lady he met with the 
profoundly experienced eye of an appraiser. 

Next morning Knight was again crossing St. George’s 
226 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


Channel — not returning to London by the Holyhead 
route as he had originally intended, but towards Bristol 
— availing himself of Mr. and Mrs. Swancourt’s invita- 
tion to revisit them on his homeward journey. 

We flit forward to Elfride. 

Woman’s ruling passion — to fascinate and influence 
those more powerful than she — though operant in 
Elfride, was decidedly purposeless. She had wanted 
her friend Knight’s good opinion from the first : how 
much more than that elementary ingredient of friend- 
ship she now desired, her fears would hardly allow her 
to think. In originally wishing to please the highest 
class of man she had ever intimately known, there was 
no disloyalty to Stephen Smith. She could not — and 
few women can — realize the possible vastness of an issue 
which has only an insignificant begetting. 

Her letters from Stephen were necessarily few, and 
her sense of fidelity clung to the last she had received 
as a wrecked mariner clings to flotsam. The young 
girl persuaded herself that she was glad Stephen had 
such a right to her hand as he had acquired (in her 
eyes) by the elopement. She beguiled herself by saying, 
‘ Perhaps if I had not so committed myself I might 
fall in love with Mr. Knight.’ 

All this made the week of Knight’s absence very 
gloomy and distasteful to her. She retained Stephen 
in her prayers, and his old letters were re-read — as a 
medicine in reality, though she deceived herself into 
the belief that it was as a pleasure. 

These letters had grown more and more hopeful. 
He told her that he finished his work every day with a 
pleasant consciousness of having removed one more 
stone from the barrier which divided them. Then he 
drew images of what a fine figure they two would cut 
some day. People would turn their heads and say, 
‘ What a prize he has won ! ’ She was not to be sad 
about that wild runaway attempt of theirs (Elfride had 
227 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


repeatedly said that it grieved her). Whatever any 
other person who knew of it might think, he knew well 
enough the modesty of her nature. The only reproach 
was a gentle one for not having written quite so de- 
votedly during her visit to London. Her letter had 
seemed to have a liveliness derived from other thoughts 
than thoughts of him. 

Knight’s intention of an early return to Endelstow 
having originally been faint, his promise to do so had 
been fainter. *He was a man who kept his words well 
to the rear of his possible actions. The vicar was 
rather surprised to see him again so soon : Mrs. Swan- 
court was not. Knight found, on meeting them all, 
after his arrival had been announced, that they had 
formed an intention to go to St. Leonards for a few 
days at the end of the month. 

No satisfactory conjuncture offered itself on this 
first evening of his return for presenting Elfride with 
what he had been at such pains to procure. He was 
fastidious in his reading of opportunities for such an 
intended act. The next morning chancing to break 
fine after a week of cloudy weather, it was proposed 
and decided that they should all drive to Barwith 
Strand, a local lion which neither Mrs. Swaricourt nor 
Knight had seen. Knight scented romantic occa- 
sions from afar, and foresaw that such a one might be 
expected before the coming night. 

The journey was along a road by neutral green hills, 
upon which hedgerows lay trailing like ropes on a quay. 
Gaps in these uplands revealed the blue sea, flecked 
with a few dashes of white and a solitary white sail, 
the whole brimming up to a keen horizon which lay 
like a line ruled from hillside to hillside. Then they 
rolled down a pass, the chocolate-toned rocks forming 
a wall on both sides, from one of which fell a heavy 
jagged shade over half the roadway. A spout of fresh 
228 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


water burst from an occasional crevice, and pattering 
down upon broad green leaves, ran along as a rivulet 
at the bottom. Unkempt locks of heather overhung 
the brow of each steep, whence at divers points a 
bramble swung forth into mid-air, snatching at their 
head-dresses like a claw. 

They mounted the last crest, and the bay which was 
to be the end of their pilgrimage burst upon them. The 
ocean blueness deepened its colour as it stretched to 
the foot of the crags, where it terminated in a fringe 
of white — silent at this distance, though moving and 
heaving like a counterpane upon a restless sleeper. 
The shadowed hollows of the purple and brown rocks 
would have been called blue had not that tint been so 
entirely appropriated by the water beside them. 

The carriage was put up at a little cottage with a 
shed attached, and an ostler and the coachman carried 
the hamper of provisions down to the shore. 

Knight found his opportunity. ‘ I did not forget 
your wish,’ he began, when they were apart from their 
friends. 

Elfride looked as if she did not understand. 

‘ And I have brought you these/ he continued, 
awkwardly pulling out the case, and opening it while 
holding it towards her. 

‘ O Mr. Knight ! ’ said Elfride confusedly, and turn- 
ing to a lively red ; ‘ I didn’t know you had any inten- 
tion or meaning in what you said. I thought it a mere 
supposition. I don’t want them.’ 

A thought which had flashed into her mind gave the 
reply a greater decisiveness than it might otherwise have 
possessed. To-morrow was the day for Stephen’s 
letter. 

‘ But will you not accept them ? ’ Knight returned, 
feeling less her master than heretofore. 

‘ I would rather not. They are beautiful — more 
beautiful than any I have ever seen,’ she answered 
229 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


earnestly, looking half-wishfully at the temptation, as 
Eve may have looked at the apple. ‘ But I don’t want 
to have them, if you will kindly forgive me, Mr. 
Knight.’ 

‘ No kindness at all,’ said Mr. Knight, brought to 
a full stop at this unexpected turn of events. 

A silence followed. Knight held the open case, 
looking rather wofully at the glittering forms he had 
forsaken his orbit to procure; turning it about and 
holding it up as if, feeling his gift to be slighted by 
her, he were endeavouring to admire it very much 
himself. 

‘ Shut them up, and don’t let me see them any 
longer — do ! ’ she said laughingly, and with a quaint 
mixture of reluctance and entreaty. 

‘ Why, Elfie ? ’. 

‘ Not Elfie to you, Mr. Knight. Oh, because I 
shall want them. There, I am silly, I know, to say 
that ! But I have a reason for not taking them — now.’ 
She kept in the last word for a moment, intending to 
imply that her refusal was finite, but somehow the word 
slipped out, and undid all the rest. 

* You will take them some day ? 9 

1 1 don’t want to.’ 

‘ Why don’t you want to, Elfride Swancourt ? ’ 

* Because I don’t. I don’t like to take them.’ 

* I have read a fact of distressing significance in 
that,’ said Knight. * Since you like them, your dislike 
to having them must be towards me ? ’ 

* No, it isn’t.’ 

* What, then ? Do you like me ? ’ 

Elfride deepened in tint, and looked into the 
distance with features shaped to an expression of the 
nicest criticism as regarded her answer. 

* I like you pretty well,’ she at length murmured 
mildly. 

‘ Not very much? ’ 

230 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


‘You are so sharp with me, and say hard things, 
and so how can I ? * she replied evasively. 

‘ You think me a fogey, I suppose ? ’ 

‘ No, I don’t — I mean I do — I don’t know what I 
think you, I mean. Let us go to papa,’ responded 
Elfride, with somewhat of a flurried delivery. 

‘ Well, I’ll tell you my object in getting the present/ 
said Knight, with a composure intended to remove 
from her mind any possible impression of his being 
what he was — her lover. ‘You see it was the very 
least I could do in common civility.’ 

Elfride felt rather blank at this lucid statement. 

Knight continued, putting away the case : ‘ I felt as 
anybody naturally would have, you know, that my words 
on your choice the other day were invidious and unfair, 
and thought an apology should take a practical shape.’ 

4 Oh yes.’ 

Elfride was sorry — she could not tell why — that he 
gave such a legitimate reason. It was a disappointment 
that he had all the time a cool motive, which might 
be stated to anybody without raising a smile. Had 
she known they were offered in that spirit, she would 
certainly have accepted the seductive gift. And the 
tantalizing feature was that perhaps he suspected her 
to imagine them offered as a lover’s token, which was 
mortifying enough if they were not. 

Mrs. Swancourt came now to where they were sitting, 
to select a flat boulder for spreading their table-cloth 
upon, and, amid the discussion on that subject, the 
matter pending between Knight and Elfride was shelved 
for a while. He read her refusal so certainly as the 
bashfulness of a girl in a novel position, that, upon 
the whole, he could tolerate such a beginning. Could 
Knight have been told that it was a sense of fidelity 
struggling against new love, whilst no less assuring 
as to his ultimate victory, it might have entirely ab- 
stracted the wish to secure it. 

231 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


At the same time a slight constraint of manner was 
visible between them for the remainder of the afternoon. 
The tide turned, and they were obliged to ascend to 
higher ground. The day glided on to its end with the 
usual quiet dreamy passivity of such occasions — when 
every deed done and thing thought is in endeavouring 
to avoid doing and thinking more. Looking idly over 
the verge of a crag, they beheld their stone dining-table 
gradually being splashed upon and their crumbs and 
fragments all washed away by the incoming sea. The 
vicar drew a moral lesson from the scene ; Knight 
replied in the same satisfied strain. And then the 
waves rolled in furiously — the neutral green-and-blue 
tongues of water slid up the slopes, and were metamor- 
phosed into foam by a careless blow, falling back white 
and faint, and leaving trailing followers behind. 

The passing of a heavy shower was the next scene — 
driving them to shelter in a shallow cave — after which 
the horses were put in, and they started to return 
homeward. By the time they reached the higher levels 
the sky had again cleared, and the sunset rays glanced 
directly upon the wet uphill road they had climbed. 
The ruts formed by their carriage-wheels on the ascent 
— a pair of Liliputian canals — were as shining bars of 
gold, tapering to nothing in the distance. Upon this also 
they turned their backs, and night spread over the sea. 

The evening was chilly, and there was no moon. 
Knight sat close to Elfride, and, when the darkness 
rendered the position of a person a matter of uncer- 
tainty, particularly close. Elfride edged away. 

‘ I hope you allow me my place ungrudgingly ? ’ he 
whispered. 

* Oh yes ; ’tis the least I can do in common civility,’ 
she said, accenting the words so that he might recognize 
them as his own returned. 

Both of them felt delicately balanced between two 
possibilities. Thus they reached home. 

232 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


To Knight this mild experience was delightful. It 
was to him a gentle innocent time — a time which, 
though there may not be much in it, seldom repeats 
itself in a man’s life, and has a peculiar dearness when 
glanced at retrospectively. He is not inconveniently 
deep in love, and is lulled by a peaceful sense of being 
able to enjoy the most trivial thing with a childlike 
enjoyment. The movement of a wave, the colour of 
a stone, anything, was enough for Knight’s drowsy 
thoughts of that day to precipitate themselves upon. 
Even the sermonizing platitudes the vicar had delivered 
himself of — chiefly because something seemed to be 
professionally required of him in the presence of a man 
of Knight’s proclivities — were swallowed whole. The 
presence of Elfride led him not merely to tolerate that 
kind of talk from the necessities of ordinary courtesy ; 
but he listened to it — took in the ideas with an enjoy- 
able make-believe that they were proper and necessary, 
and indulged in a conservative feeling that the face of 
things was complete. 

Entering her room that evening Elfride found a 
packet for herself on the dressing-table. How it came 
there she did not know. She tremblingly undid the 
folds of white paper that covered it. Yes ; it was the 
treasure of a morocco case, containing those treasures 
of ornament she had refused in the daytime. 

Elfride dressed herself in them for a moment, looked 
at herself in the glass, blushed red, and put them away. 
They filled her dreams all that night. Never had she 
seen anything so lovely, and never was it more clear 
that as an honest woman she was in duty bound to 
refuse them. Why it was not equally clear to her that 
duty required more vigorous co-ordinate conduct as 
well, let those who dissect her say. 

The next morning glared in like a spectre upon 
her. It was Stephen’s letter-day, and she was bound 
to meet the postman — to stealthily do a deed she 

o 233 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


had never liked, to secure an end she now had ceased 
to desire. 

But she went. 

There were two letters. 

One was from the bank at St. Launce’s, in which she 
had a small private deposit — probably something about 
interest. She put that in her pocket for a moment, and 
going indoors and upstairs to be safer from observation, 
tremblingly opened Stephen’s. 

What was this he said to her ? 

She was to go to the St. Launce’s Bank and take 
a sum of money which they had received private advices 
to pay her. 

The sum was two hundred pounds. 

There was no check, order, or anything of the 
nature of guarantee. In fact the information amounted 
to this : the money was now in the St. Launce’s Bank, 
standing in her name. 

She instantly opened the other letter. It contained 
a deposit-note from the bank for the sum of two 
hundred pounds which had that day been added to 
her account. Stephen’s information, then, was correct, 
and the transfer made. 

‘ I have saved this in one year,’ Stephen’s letter 
went on to say, * and what so proper as well as pleasant 
for me to do as to hand it over to you to keep for 
your use ? I have plenty for myself, independently 
of this. Should you not be disposed to let it lie idle 
in the bank, get your father to invest it in your name 
on good security. It is a little present to you from 
your more than betrothed. He will, I think, Elfride, 
feel now that my pretensions to your hand • are any- 
thing but the dream of a silly boy not worth rational 
consideration.’ 

With a natural delicacy, Elfride, in mentioning her 
father’s marriage, had refrained from all allusion to the 
pecuniary resources of the lady. 

2 34 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


Leaving this matter-of-fact subject, he went on, 
somewhat after his boyish manner : 

‘ Do you remember, darling, that first morning of my 
arrival at your house, when your father read at prayers 
the miracle of healing the sick of the palsy — where he 
is told to take up his bed and walk ? I do, and I can 
now so well realize the force of that passage. The 
smallest piece of mat is the bed of the Oriental, and 
yesterday I saw a native perform the very action, which 
reminded me to mention it. But you are better read 
than I, and perhaps you knew all this long ago. . . . 
One day I bought some small native idols to send home 
to you as curiosities, but afterwards finding they had 
been cast in England, made to look old, and shipped 
over, I threw them away in disgust. 

‘ Speaking of this reminds me that we are obliged to 
import all our house-building ironwork from England. 
Never was such foresight required to be exercised in 
building houses as here. Before we begin, we have 
to order every column, lock, hinge, and screw that will 
be required. We cannot go into the next street, as 
in London, and get them cast at a minute’s notice. 
Mr. L. says somebody will have to go to England very 
soon and superintend the selection of a large order of 
this kind. I only wish I may be the man.’ 

There before her lay the deposit-receipt for the two 
hundred pounds, and beside it the elegant present of 
Knight. Elfride grew cold — then her cheeks felt 
heated by beating blood. If by destroying the piece 
of paper the whole transaction could have been with- 
drawn from her experience, she would willingly have 
sacrificed the money it represented. She did not know 
what to do in either case. She almost feared to let 
the two articles lie in juxtaposition : so antagonistic 
were the interests they represented that a miraculous 
repulsion of one by the other was almost to be expected. 

That day she was seen little of. By the evening 
235 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


she had come to a resolution, and acted upon it. 
The packet was sealed up — with a tear of regret as 
she closed the case upon the pretty forms it con- 
tained — directed, and placed upon the writing-table in 
Knight’s room. And a letter was written to Stephen, 
stating that as yet she hardly understood her position 
with regard to the money sent ; but declaring that she 
was ready to fulfil her promise to marry him. After 
this letter had been written she delayed posting it — 
although never ceasing to feel strenuously that the 
deed must be done. 

Several days passed. There was another Indian 
letter for Elfride. Coming unexpectedly, her father 
saw it, but made no remark — why, she could not tell. 
The news this time was absolutely overwhelming. 
Stephen, as he had wished, had been actually chosen 
as the most fitting to execute the iron-work commission 
he had alluded to as impending. This duty completed 
he would have three months’ leave. His letter con- 
tinued that he should follow it in a week, and should 
take the opportunity to plainly ask her father to per- 
mit the engagement. Then came a page expressive of 
his delight and hers at the reunion ; and finally, the 
information that he would write to the shipping agents, 
asking them to telegraph and tell her when the ship 
bringing him home should be in sight — knowing how 
acceptable such information would be. 

Elfride lived and moved now as in a dream. Knight 
had at first become almost angry at her persistent 
refusal of his offering — and no less with the manner 
than the fact of it. But he saw that she began to 
look worn and ill — and his vexation lessened to simple 
perplexity. 

He ceased now to remain in the house for long 
hours together as before, but made it a mere centre for 
antiquarian and geological excursions in the neighbour- 
hood. Throw up his cards and go away he fain would 
236 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


have done, but could not. And, thus, availing himself 
of the privileges of a relative, he went in and out the 
premises as fancy led him — but still lingered on. 

‘ I don’t wish to stay here another day if my presence 
is distasteful,’ he said one afternoon. * At first you 
used to imply that I was severe with you ; and when I 
am kind you treat me unfairly.’ 

‘ No, no. Don’t say so.’ 

The origin of their acquaintanceship had been such 
as to render their manner towards each other peculiar 
and uncommon. It was of a kind to cause them to 
speak out their minds on any feelings of objection and 
difference : to be reticent on gentler matters. 

‘ I have a good mind to go away and never trouble 
you again,’ continued Knight. 

She said nothing, but the eloquent expression of 
her eyes and wan face was enough to reproach him 
for harshness. 

‘ Do you like me to be here, then ? ’ inquired Knight 
gently. 

‘ Yes,’ she said. Fidelity to the old love and truth 
to the new were ranged on opposite sides, and truth 
virtuelessly prevailed. 

1 Then I’ll stay a little longer,’ said Knight. 

‘ Don’t be vexed if I keep by myself a good deal, 
will you? Perhaps something may happen, and I may 
tell you something.’ 

* Mere coyness,’ said Knight to himself ; and went 
away with a lighter heart. The trick of reading truly 
the enigmatical forces at work in women at given times, 
which with some men is an unerring instinct, is peculiar 
to minds less direct and honest than Knight’s. 

The next evening, about five o’clock, before Knight 
had returned from a pilgrimage along the shore, a man 
walked up to the house. He was a messenger from 
Camel ton, a town a few miles off, to which place the 
railway had been advanced during the summer. 

237 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 

*A telegram for Miss Swancourt, and three and 
sixpence to pay for the special messenger/ 

Miss Swancourt sent out the money, signed the paper, 
and opened her letter with a trembling hand. She read : 

* Johnson , Liverpool ' to Miss Swancourt , Endelstow , 

near Castle Boterel. 

1 Amaryllis telegraphed off Holyhead, four o'clock. 
Expect will dock and land passengers at Cannings Basin 
ten o'clock to-morrow morning .’ 

Her father called her into the study. 

* Elfride, who sent you that message ? ’ he asked 
suspiciously. 

‘ Johnson/ 

‘ Who is Johnson, for Heaven’s sake?’ 

‘ I don’t know/ 

* The deuce you don’t ! Who is to know, then ? * 

‘ I have never heard of him till now/ 

* That’s a singular story, isn’t it.’ 

‘ I don’t know.’ 

‘ Come, come, miss ! What was the telegram ? ’ 

‘ Do you really wish to know, papa ? ’ 

‘ Well, I do/ 

‘Remember, I am a full-grown woman now/ 

‘ Well, what then ? ’ 

‘ Being a woman, and not a child, I may, I think, 
have a secret or two.’ 

‘You will, it seems/ 

‘ Women have, as a rule/ 

‘ But don’t keep them. So speak out/ 

‘ If you will not press me now, I give my word to 
tell you the meaning of all this before the week is past/ 
‘ On your honour ? ’ 

‘ On my honour/ 

‘ Very well. I have had a certain suspicion, you 
238 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


know ; and I shall be glad to find it false. I don’t 
like your manner lately.’ 

‘ At the end of the week, I said, papa.’ 

Her father did not reply, and Elfride left the room. 

She began to look out for the postman again. 
Three mornings later he brought an inland letter from 
Stephen. It contained very little matter, having been 
written in haste; but the meaning was bulky enough. 
Stephen said that, having executed a commission in 
Liverpool, he should arrive at his father’s house, East 
Endelstow, at five or six o’clock that same evening; 
that he would after dusk walk on to the next village, 
and meet her, if she would, in the church porch, as in 
the old time. He proposed this plan because he 
thought it unadvisable to call formally at her house so 
late in the evening; yet he could not sleep without 
having seen her. The minutes would seem hours till 
he clasped her in his arms. 

Elfride was still steadfast in her opinion that honour 
compelled her to meet him. Probably the very longing to 
avoid him lent additional weight to the conviction ; for she 
was markedly one of those who sigh for the unattainable 
— to whom, superlatively, a hope is pleasing because not 
a possession. And she knew it so well that her intel- 
lect was inclined to exaggerate this defect in herself. 

So during the day she looked her duty steadfastly in 
the face ; read Wordsworth’s astringent yet depressing 
ode to that Deity ; committed herself to her guidance ; 
and still felt the weight of chance desires. 

But she began to take a melancholy pleasure in 
contemplating the sacrifice of herself to the man whom 
a maidenly sense of propriety compelled her to regard 
as her only possible husband. She would meet him, 
and do all that lay in her power to marry him. To 
guard against a relapse, a note was at once despatched 
to his father’s cottage for Stephen on his arrival, fixing 
an hour for the interview. 


239 


‘On thy cold grey stones, O sea !’ 


STEPHEN had said that he should come by way of 
Bristol, and thence by a steamer to Castle Boterel, in 
order to avoid the long journey over the hills from St. 
Launce’s. He did not know of the extension of the 
railway to Camelton. 

During the afternoon a thought occurred to Elfride, 
that from any cliff along the shore it would be possible 
to see the steamer some hours before its arrival. 

She had accumulated religious force enough to do 
an act of supererogation. The act was this — to go to 
some point of land and watch for the ship that brought 
her future husband home. 

It was a cloudy afternoon. Elfride was often 
diverted from a purpose by a dull sky; and though 
she used to persuade herself that the weather was as 
fine as possible on the other side of the clouds, she 
could not bring about any practical result from this 
fancy. Now, her mood was such that the humid sky 
harmonized with it. 

Having ascended and passed over a hill behind the 
house, Elfride came to a small stream. She used it 
as a guide to the coast. It was smaller than that in 
240 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


her own valley, and flowed altogether at a higher level. 
Bushes lined the slopes of its shallow trough ; but at 
the bottom, where the water ran, was a soft green 
carpet, in a strip two or three yards wide. 

In winter, the water flowed over the grass ; in 
summer, as now, it trickled along a channel in the 
midst. 

Elfride had a sensation of eyes regarding her from 
somewhere. She turned, and there was Mr. Knight. 
He had dropped into the valley from the side of the 
hill. She felt a thrill of pleasure, and rebelliously 
allowed it to exist. 

1 What utter loneliness to find you in ! ’ 

* I am going to the shore by tracking the stream. 
I believe it empties itself not far off, in a silver thread 
of water, over a cascade of great height.’ 

* Why do you load yourself with that heavy tele- 
scope ? ’ 

‘ To look over the sea with it,’ she said faintly. 

* I’ll carry it for you to your journey’s end.’ And 
he took the glass from her unresisting hands. * It 
cannot be half a mile further. See, there is the water.’ 
He pointed to a short fragment of level muddy-gray 
colour, cutting against the sky. 

Elfride had already scanned the small surface of 
ocean visible, and had seen no ship. 

They walked along in company, sometimes with the 
brook between them — for it was no wider than a man’s 
stride — sometimes close together. The green carpet 
grew swampy, and they kept higher up. 

One of the two ridges between which they walked 
dwindled lower and became insignificant. That on 
the right hand rose with their advance, and terminated 
in a clearly defined edge against the light, as if it were 
abruptly sawn off. A little further, and the bed of 
the rivulet ended in the same fashion. 

They had come to a bank breast-high, and over it 
241 Q 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


the valley was no longer to be seen. It was withdrawn 
cleanly and completely. In its place was sky and 
boundless atmosphere; and perpendicularly down be- 
neath them — small and far off — lay the corrugated 
surface of the Atlantic. 

The small stream here found its death. Running 
over the precipice it was dispersed in spray before it 
was half-way down, and falling like rain upon project- 
ing ledges, made minute grassy meadows of them. At 
the bottom the water-drops soaked away amid the 
ddbris of the cliff. This was the inglorious end of 
the river. 

* What are you looking for ? * said Knight, following 
the direction of her eyes. 

She was gazing hard at a black object — nearer to 
the shore than to the horizon — from the summit of 
which came a nebulous haze, stretching like gauze 
over the sea. 

‘ The Puffin , a little summer steamboat — from Bristol 
to Castle Boterel,’ she said. * I think that is it — look. 
Will you give me the glass ? ’ 

Knight pulled open the old-fashioned but powerful 
telescope, and handed it to Elfride, who had looked 
on with heavy eyes. 

* I can’t keep it up now,’ she said. 

* Rest it on my shoulder.’ 

1 It is too high.’ 

‘ Under my arm.’ 

‘ Too low. You may look instead,’ she murmured 
weakly. 

Knight raised the glass to his eye, and swept the 
sea till the Puffin entered its field. 

1 Yes, it is the Puffin — a tiny craft. I can see her 
figure-head distinctly — a bird with a beak as big as its 
head.’ 

‘ Can you see the deck ? ’ 

* Wait a minute ; yes, pretty clearly. And I can 

242 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


see the black forms of the passengers against its white 
surface. One of them has taken something from 
another — a glass, I think — yes, it is — and he is level- 
ling it in this direction. Depend upon it we are con- 
spicuous objects against the sky to them. Now, it 
seems to rain upon them, and they put on overcoats 
and open umbrellas. They vanish and go below — all 
but that one who has borrowed the glass. He is a 
slim young fellow, and still watches us.’ 

Elfride grew pale, and shifted her little feet uneasily. 

Knight lowered the glass. 

‘ I think we had better return,’ he said. * That 
cloud which is raining on them may soon reach us. 
Why, you look ill. How is that ? ’ 

* Something in the air affects my face.’ 

‘ Those fair cheeks are very fastidious, I fear,’ re- 
turned Knight tenderly* ‘ This air would make those 
rosy that were never so before, one would think — eh, 
Nature’s spoilt child ? ’ 

Elfride’s colour returned again. 

‘ There is more to see behind us, after all,’ said 
Knight. 

She turned her back upon the boat and Stephen 
Smith, and saw, towering still higher than themselves, 
the vertical face of the hill on the right, which did not 
project seaward so far as the bed of the valley, but 
formed the back of a small cove, and so was visible 
like a concave wall, bending round from their position 
towards the left. 

The composition of the huge hill was revealed to its 
backbone and marrow here at its rent extremity. It 
consisted of a vast stratification of blackish-gray slate, 
unvaried in its whole height by a single change of 
shade. 

It is with cliffs and mountains as with persons ; 
they have what is called a presence, which is not 
necessarily proportionate to their actual bulk. A little 
243 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


cliff will impress you powerfully; a great one not at 
all. It depends, as with man, upon the countenance of 
the cliff. 

* I cannot bear to look at that cliff,’ said Elfride. 
‘ It has a horrid personality, and makes me shudder. 
We will go.’ 

* Can you climb ? ’ said Knight. ‘ If so, we will 
ascend by that path over the grim old fellow’s brow.’ 

* Try me,’ said Elfride disdainfully. ‘ I have 
ascended steeper slopes than that.’ 

From where they had been loitering, a grassy path 
wound along inside a bank, placed as a safeguard for 
unwary pedestrians, to the top of the precipice, and 
over it along the hill in an inland direction. 

‘ Take my arm, Miss Swancourt,’ said Knight. 

* I can get on better without it, thank you.’ 

When they were one quarter of the way up, Elfride 
stopped to take breath. Knight stretched out his hand. 

She took it, and they ascended the remaining slope 
together. Reaching the very top, they sat down to 
rest by mutual consent. 

* Heavens, what an altitude ! ’ said Knight between 
his pants, and looking far over the sea. The cascade 
at the bottom of the slope appeared a mere span in 
height from where they were now. 

Elfride was looking to the left. The steamboat was 
in full view again, and by reason of the vast sur- 
face of sea their higher position uncovered it seemed 
almost close to the shore. 

‘Over that edge,’ said Knight, ‘where nothing but 
vacancy appears, is a moving compact mass. The wind 
strikes the face of the rock, runs up it, rises like a 
fountain to a height far above our heads, curls over us 
in an arch, and disperses behind us. In fact, an in- 
verted cascade is there — as perfect as the Niagara Falls 
— but rising instead of falling, and air instead of water. 
Now look here.’ 


244 


A PAIR OF 'BLUE EYES 


Knight threw a stone over the bank, aiming it as if 
to go onward over the cliff. Reaching the verge, it 
towered into the air like a bird, turned back, and 
alighted on the ground behind them. They themselves 
were in a dead calm. 

‘ A boat crosses Niagara immediately at the foot of 
the falls, where the water is quite still, the fallen mass 
curving under it. We are in precisely the same posi- 
tion with regard to our atmospheric cataract here. If 
you run back from the cliff fifty yards, you will be in a 
brisk wind. Now I daresay over the bank is a little 
backward current.’ 

Knight rose and leant over the bank. No sooner 
was his head above it than his hat appeared to be 
sucked from his head — slipping over his forehead in 
a seaward direction. 

‘ That’s the backward eddy, as I told you,’ he cried, 
and vanished over the little bank after his hat. 

Elfride waited one minute ; he did not return. She 
waited another, and there was no sign of him. 

A few drops of rain fell, then a sudden shower. 

She arose, and looked over the bank. On the 
other side were two or three yards of level ground — 
then a short steep preparatory slope — then the verge 
of the precipice. 

On the slope was Knight, his hat on his head. He 
was on his hands and knees, trying to climb back to 
the level ground. The rain had wetted the shaly sur- 
face of the incline. A slight superficial wetting of the 
soil hereabout made it far more slippery to stand on 
than the same soil thoroughly drenched. The inner 
substance was still hard, and was lubricated by the moist- 
ened film. 

‘ I find a difficulty in getting back,’ said Knight. 

Elfride’s heart fell like lead. 

« But you can get back ? ’ she wildly inquired. 

Knight strove with all his might for two or three 
245 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


minutes, and the drops of perspiration began to bead 
his brow. 

‘ No, I am unable to do it,’ he answered. 

Elfride, by a wrench of thought, forced away from 
her mind the sensation that Knight was in bodily 
danger. But attempt to help him she must. She 
ventured upon the treacherous incline, propped her- 
self with the closed telescope, and gave him her hand 
before he saw her movements. 

* O Elfride ! why did you ? ’ said he. ‘ I am afraid 
you have only endangered yourself.’ 

And as if to prove his statement, in making an 
endeavour by her assistance they both slipped lower, 
and then he was again stayed. His foot was propped 
by a bracket of quartz rock, balanced on the verge of 
the precipice. Fixed by this, he steadied her, her 
head being about a foot below the beginning of the 
slope. Elfride had dropped the glass ; it rolled to the 
edge and vanished over it into a nether sky. 

‘ Hold tightly to me/ he said. 

She flung her arms round his neck with such a 
firm grasp that whilst he remained it was impossible 
for her to fall. 

* Don’t be flurried,’ Knight continued. ‘ So long as 
we stay above this block we are perfectly safe. Wait a 
moment whilst I consider what we had better do.’ 

He turned his eyes to the dizzy depths beneath them, 
and surveyed the position of affairs. 

Two glances told him a tale with ghastly distinctness. 
It was that, unless they performed their feat of getting 
up the slope with the precision of machines, they were 
over the edge and whirling in mid-air. 

For this purpose it was necessary that he should 
recover the breath and strength which his previous 
efforts had cost him. So he still waited, and looked 
in the face of the enemy. 

The crest of this terrible natural fafade passed 
246 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


among the neighbouring inhabitants as being seven 
hundred feet above the water it overhung. It had 
been proved by actual measurement to be not a foot 
less than six hundred and fifty. 

That is to say, it is nearly three times the height of 
Flamborough, half as high again as the South Foreland, 
a hundred feet higher than Beachy Head — the loftiest 
promontory on the east or south side of this island — 
twice the height of St. Aldhelm’s, thrice as high as 
the Lizard, and just double the height of St. Bee’s. 
One sea-bord point on the western coast is known 
to surpass it in altitude, but only by a few feet. This 
is Great Orme’s Head, in Caernarvonshire. 

And it must be remembered that the cliff exhibits 
an intensifying feature which some of those are without 
— sheer perpendicularity from the half-tide level. 

Yet this remarkable rampart forms no headland : 
it rather walls in an inlet — the promontory on each 
side being much lower. Thus, far from being salient, 
its horizontal section is concave. The sea, rolling 
direct from the shores of North America, has in fact 
eaten a chasm into the middle of a hill, and the giant, 
embayed and unobtrusive, stands in the rear of pigmy 
supporters. Not least singularly, neither hill, chasm, 
nor precipice has a name. On this account I will call 
the precipice the Cliff without a Name.* 

What gave an added terror to its height was its 
blackness. And upon this dark face the beating of 
ten thousand west winds had formed a kind of bloom, 
which had a visual effect not unlike that of a Hambro’ 
grape. Moreover it seemed to float off into the atmo- 
sphere, and inspire terror through the lungs. 

< This piece of quartz, supporting my feet, is on the 
very nose of the cliff/ said Knight, breaking the silence 
after his rigid stoical meditation. ‘ Now what you are 


See Preface. 
247 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


to do is this. Clamber up my body till your feet are 
on my shoulders : when you are there you will, I think, 
be able to climb on to level ground/ 

‘ What will you do ? ’ 

‘ Wait whilst you run for assistance.’ 

* I ought to have done that in the first place, ought 
I not ? ’ 

‘ I was in the act of slipping, and should have 
reached no stand-point without your weight, in all 
probability. But don’t let us talk. Be brave, Elfride, 
and climb.’ 

She prepared to ascend, saying, ‘ This is the moment 
I anticipated when on the tower. I thought it would 
come ! ’ 

‘This is not a time for superstition,’ said Knight. 
4 Dismiss all that.’ 

4 1 will,’ she said humbly. 

‘ Now put your foot into my hand : next the other. 
That’s good — well done. Hold to my shoulder.’ 

She placed her feet upon the stirrup he made of his 
hand, and was high enough to get a view of the natural 
surface of the hill over the bank. 

4 Can you now climb on to level ground ? * 

4 1 am afraid not. I will try.’ 

4 What can you see ? ’ 

4 The sloping common.’ 

‘ What upon it ? ’ 

‘ Purple heather and some grass.’ 

‘ Nothing more — no man or human being of any 
kind?’ 

4 Nobody.’ 

‘ Now try to get higher in this way. You see that 
tuft of sea-pink above you. Get that well into your 
hand, but don’t trust to it entirely. Then step upon 
my shoulder, and I think you will reach the top.’ 

With trembling limbs she did exactly as he told her. 
The preternatural quiet and solemnity of his manner 
248 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


overspread upon herself, and gave her a courage not 
her own. She made a spring from the top of his 
shoulder, and was up. 

Then she turned to look at him. 

By an ill fate, the force downwards of her bound, 
added to his own weight, had been too much for the 
block of quartz upon which his feet depended. It was, 
indeed, originally an igneous protrusion into the enor- 
mous masses of black strata, which had since been worn 
away from the sides of the alien fragment by cen- 
turies of frost and rain, and now left it without much 
support. 

It moved. Knight seized a tuft of sea-pink with 
each hand. 

The quartz rock which had been his salvation was 
worse than useless now. It rolled over, out of sight, 
and away into the same nether sky that had engulfed 
the telescope. 

One of the tufts by which he held came out at the 
root, and Knight began to follow the quartz. It was 
a terrible moment. Elfride uttered a low wild wail 
of agony, bowed her head, and covered her face with 
her hands. 

Between the turf-covered slope and the gigantic 
perpendicular rock intervened a weather-worn series of 
jagged edges, forming a face yet steeper than the former 
slope. As he slowly slid inch by inch upon these, 
Knight made a last desperate dash at the lowest tuft of 
vegetation — the last outlying knot of starved herbage 
ere the rock appeared in all its bareness. It arrested 
his further descent. Knight was now literally sus- 
pended by his arms ; but the incline of the brow being 
what engineers would call about a quarter in one, it 
was sufficient to relieve his arms of a portion of his 
weight, but was very far from offering an adequately flat 
face to support him. 

In spite of this dreadful tension of body and mind, 
249 


R 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


Knight found time for a moment of thankfulness. 
Elfride was safe. 

She lay on her side above him — her fingers clasped. 
Seeing him again steady, she jumped upon her feet. 

‘ Now, if I can only save you by running for help ! ’ 
she cried. * Oh, I would have died instead ! Why did 
you try so hard to deliver me ? ’ And she turned away 
wildly to run for assistance. 

‘ Elfride, how long will it take you to run to Endel- 
stow and back ? ’ 

‘ Three-quarters of an hour.’ 

‘ That won’t do ; my hands will not hold out ten 
minutes. And is there nobody nearer ? ’ 

‘ No ; unless a chance passer may happen to be.’ 

‘ He would have nothing with him that could save 
me. Is there a pole or stick of any kind on the 
common ? * 

She gazed around. The common was bare of every- 
thing but heather and grass. 

A minute — perhaps more time — was passed in mute 
thought by both. On a sudden the blank and helpless 
agony left her face. She vanished over the bank from 
his sight. 

Knight felt himself in the presence of a personalized 
loneliness. 


XXII 


' A woman’s way.* 

Haggard cliffs, of every ugly altitude, are as 
common as sea-fowl along the line of coast between 
Exmoor and Land’s End; but this outflanked and 
encompassed specimen was the ugliest of them all. 
Their summits are not safe places for scientific experi- 
ment on the principles of air-currents, as Knight had 
now found, to his dismay. 

He still clutched the face of the escarpment — not 
with the frenzied hold of despair, but with a dogged 
determination to make the most of his every jot of 
endurance, and so give the longest possible scope to 
Elfride’s intentions, whatever they might be. 

He reclined hand in hand with the world in its 
infancy. Not a blade, not an insect, which spoke of 
the present, was between him and the past. The 
inveterate antagonism of these black precipices to all 
strugglers for life is in no way more forcibly suggested 
than by the paucity of tufts of grass, lichens, or confervse 
on their outermost ledges. 

Knight pondered on the meaning of Elfride’s hasty 
disappearance, but could not avoid an instinctive con- 
clusion that there existed but a doubtful hope for him. 

251 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES* 


As far as he could judge, his sole chance of deliverance 
lay in the possibility of a rope or pole being brought ; 
and this possibility was remote indeed. The soil upon 
these high downs was left so untended that they were 
unenclosed for miles, except by a casual bank or dry 
wall, and were rarely visited but for the purpose of 
collecting or counting the flock which found a scanty 
means of subsistence thereon. 

At first, when death appeared improbable, because 
it had never visited him before, Knight could think of 
no future, nor of anything connected with his past. 
He could only look sternly at Nature’s treacherous 
attempt to put an end to him, and strive to thwart her. 

From the fact that the cliff formed the inner face 
of the segment of a huge cylinder, having the sky for a 
top and the sea for a bottom, which enclosed the cove 
to the extent of more than a semicircle, he could see 
the vertical face curving round on each side of him. 
He looked far down the facade, and realized more 
thoroughly how it threatened him. Grimness was in 
every feature, and to its very bowels the inimical shape 
was desolation. 

By one of those familiar conjunctions of things 
wherewith the inanimate world baits the mind of man 
when he pauses in moments of suspense, opposite 
Knight’s eyes was an imbedded fossil, standing forth 
in low relief from the rock. It was a creature with 
eyes. The eyes, dead and turned to stone, were even 
now regarding him. It was one of the early crustaceans 
called Trilobites. Separated by millions of years in 
their lives, Knight and this underling seemed to have 
met in their death. It was the single instance within 
reach of his vision of anything that had ever been alive 
and had had a body to save, as he himself had now. 

The creature represented but a low type of animal 
existence, for never in their vernal years had the plains 
indicated by those numberless slaty layers been tra- 
252 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 

versed by an intelligence worthy of the name. Zoo- 
phytes, mollusca, shell-fish, were the highest develop- 
ments of those ancient dates. The immense lapses of 
time each formation represented had known nothing of 
the dignity of man. They were grand times, but they 
were mean times too, and mean were their relics. He 
was to be with the small in his death. 

Knight was a geologist ; and such is the supremacy 
of habit over occasion, as a pioneer of the thoughts of 
men, that at this dreadful juncture his mind found time 
to take in, by a momentary sweep, the varied scenes 
that had had their day between this creature's epoch 
and his own. There is no place like a cleft landscape 
for bringing home such imaginings as these. 

Time closed up like a fan before him. He saw him- 
self at one extremity of the years, face to face with the 
beginning and all the intermediate centuries simulta- 
neously. Fierce men, clothed in the hides of beasts, and 
carrying, for defence and attack, huge clubs and pointed 
spears, rose from the rock, like the phantoms before the 
doomed Macbeth. They lived in hollows, woods, and 
mud huts — perhaps in caves of the neighbouring rocks. 
Behind them stood an earlier band. No man was there. 
Huge elephantine forms, the mastodon, the hippopo- 
tamus, the tapir, antelopes of monstrous size, the mega- 
therium, and the myledon — all, for the moment, in 
juxtaposition. Further back, and overlapped by these, 
were perched huge-billed birds and swinish creatures as 
large as horses. Still more shadowy were the sinister 
crocodilian outlines — alligators and other uncouth 
shapes, culminating in the colossal lizard, the iguanodon. 
Folded behind were dragon forms and clouds of flying 
reptiles : still underneath were fishy beings of lower 
development ; and so on, till the lifetime scenes of the 
fossil confronting him were a present and modern con- 
dition of things. These images passed before Knight's 
inner eye in less than half a minute, and he was again 
253 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


considering the actual present. Was he to die ? The 
mental picture of Elfride in the world, without himself 
to cherish her, smote his heart like a whip. He had 
hoped for deliverance, but what could a girl do ? He 
dared not move an inch. Was Death really stretching 
out his hand ? The previous sensation, that it was im- 
probable he would die, was fainter now. 

However, Knight still clung to the cliff. 

To those musing weather-beaten West-country folk 
who pass the greater part of their days and nights out 
of doors, Nature seems to have moods in other than a 
poetical sense : predilections for certain deeds at certain 
times, without any apparent law to govern or season 
to account for them. She is read as a person with a 
curious temper; as one who does not scatter kind- 
nesses and cruelties alternately, impartially, and in 
order, but heartless severities or overwhelming gene- 
rosities in lawless caprice. Man’s case is always that 
of the prodigal’s favourite or the miser’s pensioner. 
In her unfriendly moments there seems a feline fun 
in her tricks, begotten by a foretaste of her pleasure 
in swallowing the victim. 

Such a way of thinking had been absurd to Knight, 
but he began to adopt it now. He was first spitted 
on to a rock. New tortures followed. The rain in- 
creased, and persecuted him with an exceptional persis- 
tency which he was moved to believe owed its cause to 
the fact that he was in such a wretched state already. 
An entirely new order of things could be observed in 
this introduction of rain upon the scene. It rained 
upwards instead of down. The strong ascending air 
carried the rain-drops with it in its race up the escarp- 
ment, coming to him with such velocity that they stuck 
into his flesh like cold needles. Each drop was virtually 
a shaft, and it pierced him to his skin. The water- 
shafts seemed to lift him on their points : no downward 
rain ever had such a torturing effect. In a brief space 
254 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


he was drenched, except in two places. These were on 
the top of his shoulders and on the crown of his hat. 

The wind, though not intense in other situations, 
was strong here. It tugged at his coat and lifted it. 
We are mostly accustomed to look upon all opposition 
which is not animate, as that of the stolid, inexorable 
hand of indifference, which wears out the patience more 
than the strength. Here, at any rate, hostility did not 
assume that slow and sickening form. It was a cosmic 
agency, active, lashing, eager for conquest : determina- 
tion ; not an insensate standing in the way. 

Knight had over-estimated the strength of his hands. 
They were getting weak already. ‘ She will never come 
again ; she has been gone ten minutes,’ he said to 
himself. 

This mistake arose from the unusual compression 
of his experiences just now : she had really been gone 
but three. 

* As many more minutes will be my end,’ he 
thought. 

Next came another instance of the incapacity of the 
mind to make comparisons at such times. 

‘ This is a summer afternoon,’ he said, * and there 
can never have been such a heavy and cold rain on 
a summer day in my life before.’ 

He was again mistaken. The rain was quite ordi- 
nary in quantity ; the air in temperature. It was, as 
is usual, the menacing attitude in which they approached 
him that magnified their powers. 

He again looked straight downwards, the wind and 
the water-dashes lifting his moustache, scudding up his 
cheeks, under his eyelids, and into his eyes. This is 
what he saw down there : the surface of the sea — 
visually just past his toes, and under his feet ; actually 
one-eighth of a mile, or more than two hundred yards, 
below them. We colour according to our moods the 
objects we survey. The sea would have been a deep 
255 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


neutral blue, had happier auspices attended the gazer : 
it was now no otherwise than distinctly black to his 
vision. That narrow white border was foam, he knew 
well; but its boisterous tosses were so distant as to 
appear a pulsation only, and its plashing was barely 
audible. A white border to a black sea — his funeral 
pall and its edging. 

The world was to some extent turned upside down for 
him. Rain descended from below. Beneath his feet was 
aerial space and the unknown ; above him was the firm, 
familiar ground, and upon it all that he loved best. 

Pitiless nature had then two voices, and two only. 
The nearer was the voice of the wind in his ears rising 
and falling as it mauled and thrust him hard or softly. 
The second and distant one was the moan of that un- 
plummetted ocean below and afar — rubbing its restless 
flank against the Cliff without a Name. 

Knight perseveringly held fast. Had he any faith 
in Elfride ? Perhaps. Love is faith, and faith, like a 
gathered flower, will rootlessly live on. 

Nobody would have expected the sun to shine on 
such an evening as this. Yet it appeared, low down 
upon the sea. Not with its natural golden fringe, 
sweeping the furthest ends of the landscape, not with 
the strange glare of whiteness which it sometimes puts 
on as an alternative to colour, but as a splotch of ver- 
milion red upon a leaden ground — a red face looking 
on with a drunken leer. 

Most men who have brains know it, and few are so 
foolish as to disguise this fact from themselves or others, 
even though an ostentatious display may be called self- 
conceit. Knight, without showing it much, knew that 
his intellect was above the average. And he thought — 
he could not help thinking— that his death would be a 
deliberate loss to earth of good material ; that such an 
experiment in killing might have been practised upon 
some less developed life. 

256 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


A fancy some people hold, when in a bitter mood, 
is that inexorable circumstance only tries to prevent 
what intelligence attempts. Renounce a desire for a 
long-contested position, and go on another tack, and 
after a while the prize is thrown at you, seemingly in 
disappointment that no more tantalizing is possible. 

Knight gave up thoughts of life utterly and entirely, 
and turned to contemplate the Dark Valley and the un- 
known future beyond. Into the shadowy depths of these 
speculations we will not follow him. Let it suffice to 
state what ensued. 

At that moment of taking no more thought for this 
life, something disturbed the outline of the bank above 
him. A spot appeared. It was the head of Elfride. 

Knight immediately prepared to welcome life again. 

The expression of a face 1 consigned to utter loneli- 
ness, when a friend first looks in upon it, is moving 
in the extreme. In rowing seaward to a light-ship or 
sea-girt lighthouse, where, without any immediate terror 
of death, the inmates experience the gloom of mono- 
tonous seclusion, the grateful eloquence of their counte- 
nances at the greeting, expressive of thankfulness for 
the visit, is enough to stir the emotions of the most 
careless observer. 

Knight’s upward look at Elfride was of a nature with, 
but far transcending, such an instance as this. The 
lines of his face had deepened to furrows, and every 
one of them thanked her visibly. His lips moved to 
the word ‘ Elfride,’ though the emotion evolved no 
sound. His eyes passed all description in their com- 
bination of the whole diapason of eloquence, from 
lover’s deep love to fellow-man’s gratitude for a token 
of remembrance from one of his kind. 

Elfride had come back. What she had come to do 
he did not know. She could only look on at his death, 
perhaps. Still, she had come back, and not deserted 
him utterly, and it was much. 

257 


R 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


It was a novelty in the extreme to see Henry Knight, 
to whom Elfride was but a child, who had swayed her 
as a tree sways a bird’s nest, who mastered her and 
made her weep most bitterly at her own insignificance, 
thus thankful for a sight of her face. She looked down 
upon him, her face glistening with rain and tears. He 
smiled faintly. 

‘ How calm he is ! ’ she thought. 1 How great and 
noble he is to be so calm ! ’ She would have died ten 
times for him then. 

The gliding form of the steamboat caught her eye : 
she heeded it no longer. 

* How much longer can you wait ? ’ came from her 
pale lips and along the wind to his position. 

‘ Four minutes,’ said Knight in a weaker voice than 
her own. 

‘ But with a good hope of being saved ? ’ 

‘ Seven or eight.’ 

He now noticed that in her arms she bore a bundle 
of white linen, and that her form was singularly attenu- 
ated. So preternaturally thin and flexible was Elfride 
at this moment, that she appeared to bend under the 
light blows of the rain-shafts, as they struck into her 
sides and bosom, and splintered into spray on her 
face. There is nothing like a thorough drenching for 
reducing the protuberances of clothes, but Elfride’s 
seemed to cling to her like a glove. 

Without heeding the attack of the clouds further 
than by raising her hand and wiping away the spirts 
of rain when they went more particularly into her eyes, 
she sat down and hurriedly began rending the linen 
into strips. These she knotted end to end, and after- 
wards twisted them like the strands of a cord. In a 
short space of time she had formed a perfect rope by 
this means, six or seven yards long. 

4 Can you wait while I bind it ? ’ she said, anxiously 
extending her gaze down to him. 

258 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


‘Yes, if not very long. Hope has given me a 
wonderful instalment of strength.’ 

Elfride dropped her eyes again, tore the remaining 
material into narrow tape-like ligaments, knotted each 
to each as before, but on a smaller scale, and wound 
the lengthy string she had thus formed round and 
round the linen rope, which, without this binding, had 
a tendency to spread abroad. 

‘ Now,’ said Knight, who, watching the proceedings 
intently, had by this time not only grasped her scheme, 
but reasoned further on, ‘ I can hold three minutes 
longer yet. And do you use the time in testing the 
strength of the knots, one by one.’ 

She at once obeyed, tested each singly by putting 
her foot on the rope between each knot, arid pulling 
with her hands. One of the knots slipped. 

‘ Oh, think ! It would have broken but for your 
forethought,’ Elfride exclaimed apprehensively. 

She retied the two ends. The rope was now firm in 
every part. 

‘ When you have let it down,’ said Knight, already 
resuming his position of ruling power, ‘ go back from 
the edge of the slope, and over the bank as far as the 
rope will allow you. Then lean down, and hold the 
end with both hands.’ 

He had first thought of a safer plan for his own 
deliverance, but it involved the disadvantage of possibly 
endangering her life. 

‘ I have tied it round my waist,’ she cried, * and I 
will lean directly upon the bank, holding with my 
hands as well.’ 

It was the arrangement he had thought of, but 
would not suggest. 

‘ I will raise and drop it three times when I am 
behind the bank,’ she continued, ‘ to signify that I am 
ready. Take care, oh, take the greatest care, I beg 
you ! ’ 


259 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


She dropped the rope over him, to learn how much 
of its length it would be necessary to expend on that 
side of the bank, went back, and disappeared as she 
had done before. 

The rope was trailing by Knight’s shoulders. In a 
few moments it twitched three times. 

He waited yet a second or two, then laid hold. 

The incline of this upper portion of the precipice, 
to the length only of a few feet, useless to a climber 
empty-handed, was invaluable now. Not more than 
half his weight depended entirely on the linen rope. 
Half a dozen extensions of the arms, alternating with 
half a dozen seizures of the rope with his feet, brought 
him up to the level of the soil. 

He was saved, and by Elfride. 

He extended his cramped limbs like an awakened 
sleeper, and sprang over the bank. 

At sight of him she leapt to her feet with almost 
a shriek of joy. Knight’s eyes met hers, and with 
supreme eloquence the glance of each told a long- 
concealed tale of emotion in that short half-moment. 
Moved by an impulse neither could resist, they ran 
together and into each other’s arms. 

At the moment of embracing, Elfride’s eyes invol- 
untarily flashed towards the Puffin steamboat. It had 
doubled the point, and was no longer to be seen. 

An overwhelming rush of exultation at having de- 
livered the man she revered from one of the most 
terrible forms of death, shook the gentle girl to the 
centre of her soul. It merged in a defiance of duty to 
Stephen, and a total recklessness as to plighted faith. 
Every nerve of her will was now in entire subjection to 
her feeling — volition as a guiding power had forsaken 
her. To remain passive, as she remained now, en- 
circled by his arms, was a sufficiently complete result — 
a glorious crown to all the years of her life. Perhaps 
he was only grateful, and did not love her. No matter : 

260 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


it was infinitely more to be even the slave oi the 
greater than the queen of the less. Some such sensa- 
tion as this, though it was not recognized as a finished 
thought, raced along the impressionable soul of Elfride. 

Regarding their attitude, it was impossible for two 
persons to go nearer to a kiss than went Knight and 
Elfride during those minutes of impulsive embrace in 
the pelting rain. Yet they did not kiss. Knight’s 
peculiarity of nature was such that it would not allow 
him to take advantage of the unguarded and passionate 
avowal she had tacitly made. 

Elfride recovered herself, and gently struggled to 
be free. 

He reluctantly relinquished her, and then surveyed 
her from crown to toe. She seemed as small as an 
infant. He perceived whence she had obtained the 
rope. 

‘ Elfride, my Elfride ! ’ he exclaimed in gratified 
amazement. 

‘ I must leave you now,’ she said, her face doubling 
its red, with an expression between gladness and shame 
* You follow me, but at some distance.’ 

‘ The rain and wind pierce you through ; the chill 
will kill you. God bless you for such devotion ! Take 
my coat and put it on.’ 

‘No; I shall get warm running.’ 

Elfride had absolutely nothing between her and the 
weather but her exterior robe or ‘ costume.’ The door 
had been made upon a woman’s wit, and it had found 
its way out. Behind the bank, whilst Knight reclined 
upon the dizzy slope waiting for death, she had taken 
off her whole clothing, and replaced only her outer 
bodice and skirt. Every thread of the remainder lay 
upon the ground in the form of a woollen and cotton 
rope. 

‘ I am used to being wet through/ she added. ‘ I 
have been drenched on Pansy dozens of times. Good- 
261 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


bye till we meet, clothed and in our right minds, by the 
fireside at home ! * 

She then ran off from him through the pelting rain 
like a hare ; or more like a pheasant when, scampering 
away with a lowered tail, it has a mind to fly, but does 
not. Elfride was soon out of sight. 

Knight felt uncomfortably wet and chilled, but 
glowing with fervour nevertheless. He fully appreci- 
ated Elfride’s girlish delicacy in refusing his escort in 
the meagre habiliments she wore, yet felt that necessary 
abstraction of herself for a short half-hour as a most 
grievous loss to him. 

He gathered up her knotted and twisted plumage of 
linen, lace, and embroidery work, and laid it across his 
arm. He noticed on the ground an envelope, limp 
and wet. In endeavouring to restore this to its proper 
shape, he loosened from the envelope a piece of paper 
it had contained, which was seized by the wind in 
falling from Knight’s hand. It was blown to the right, 
blown to the left — it floated to the edge of the cliff and 
over the sea, where it was hurled aloft. It twirled in 
the air, and then flew back over his head. 

Knight followed the paper, and secured it. Having 
done so, he looked to discover if it had been worth 
securing. 

The troublesome sheet was a banker’s receipt for 
two hundred pounds, placed to the credit of Miss 
Swancourt, which the impractical girl had totally for- 
gotten she carried with her. 

Knight folded it as carefully as its moist condition 
would allow, put it in his pocket, and followed Elfride. 


XXIII 


‘Should auld acquaintance be forgot?* 

By this time Stephen Smith had stepped out upon 
the quay at Castle Boterel, and breathed his native air. 

A darker skin, a more pronounced moustache, and 
an incipient beard, were the chief additions and changes 
noticeable in his appearance. 

In spite of the falling rain, which had somewhat 
lessened, he took a small valise in his hand, and, leav- 
ing the remainder of his luggage at the inn, ascended 
the hills towards East Endelstow. This place lay in a 
vale of its own, further inland than the west village, 
and though so near it, had little of physical feature in 
common with the latter. East Endelstow was more 
wooded and fertile : it boasted of Lord Luxellian’s 
mansion and park, and was free from those bleak open 
uplands which lent such an air of desolation to the 
vicinage of the coast — always excepting the small valley 
in which stood the vicarage and Mrs. Swancourfs old 
house, The Crags. 

Stephen had arrived nearly at the summit of the 
ridge when the rain again increased its volume, and, 
looking about for temporary shelter, he ascended a 
steep path which penetrated dense hazel bushes in the 
263 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


lower part of its course. Further up it emerged upon a 
ledge immediately over the turnpike-road, and sheltered 
by an overhanging face of rubble rock, with bushes 
above. For a reason of his own he made this spot his 
refuge from the storm, and turning his face to the left, 
conned the landscape as a book. 

He was overlooking the valley containing Elfride’s 
residence. 

From this point of observation the prospect exhibited 
the peculiarity of being either brilliant foreground or the 
subdued tone of distance, a sudden dip in the surface of 
the country lowering out of sight all the intermediate 
prospect. In apparent contact with the trees and 
bushes growing close beside him appeared the distant 
tract, terminated suddenly by the brink of the series of 
cliffs which culminated in the tall giant without a name 
— small and unimportant as here beheld. A leaf on a 
bough at Stephen’s elbow blotted out a whole hill in the 
contrasting district far away; a green bunch of nuts 
covered a complete upland there, and the great cliff 
itself was outvied by a pigmy crag in the bank hard by 
him. Stephen had looked upon these things hundreds 
of times before to-day, but he had never viewed them 
with such tenderness as now. 

Stepping forward in this direction yet a little further, 
he could see the tower of West Endelstow Church, be- 
neath which he was to meet his Elfride that night. And 
at the same time he noticed, coming over the hill from 
the cliffs, a white speck in motion. It seemed first to 
be a sea-gull flying low, but ultimately proved to be a 
human figure, running with great rapidity. The form 
flitted on, heedless of the rain which had caused 
Stephen’s halt in this place, dropped down the heathery 
hill, entered the vale, and was out of sight. 

Whilst he meditated upon the meaning of this pheno- 
menon, he was surprised to see swim into his ken from 
the same point of departure another moving speck, as 
264 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


different from the first as well could be, insomuch that 
it was perceptible only by its blackness. Slowly and 
regularly it took the same course, and there was not 
much doubt that this was the form of a man. He, too, 
gradually descended from the upper levels, and was lost 
in the valley below. 

The rain had by this time again abated, and Stephen 
returned to the road. Looking ahead, he saw two men 
and a cart. They were soon obscured by the interven- 
tion of a high hedge. Just before they emerged again 
he heard voices in conversation. 

‘ ’A must soon be in the naibourhood, too, if so be 
he’s a-coming,’ said a tenor tongue, which Stephen in- 
stantly recognized as Martin Cannister’s. 

‘ ’A must ’a b’lieve,’ said another voice — that of 
Stephen’s father. 

Stephen stepped forward, and came before them face 
to face. His father and Martin were walking, dressed 
in their second best suits, and beside them rambled 
along a grizzel horse and brightly painted spring-cart. 

‘ All right, Mr. Cannister ; here’s the lost man ! ’ ex- 
claimed young Smith, entering at once upon the old 
•style of greeting. * Father, here I am.’ 

‘ All right, my sonny ; and glad I be for’t ! ’ returned 
John Smith, overjoyed to see the young man. ‘ How 
be ye ? Well, come along home, and don’t let’s bide 
out here in the damp. Such weather must be terrible 
bad for a young chap just come from a fiery nation like 
Indy ; hey, naibour Cannister ? ’ 

‘Trew, trew. And about getting home his traps? 
Boxes, monstrous bales, and noble packages of foreign 
description, I make no doubt ? * 

* Hardly all that,’ said Stephen laughing. 

‘We brought the cart, maning to go right on to 
Castle Boterel afore ye landed,’ said his father. ‘“Put 
in the horse,” says Martin. “ Ay,” says I, “ so we will ; ” 
and did it straightway. Now, maybe, Martin had bettej 
s 265 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


go on wi’ the cart for the things, and you and I walk 
home-along.’ 

‘ And I shall be back a’most as soon as you. Peggy 
is a pretty step still, though time d’ begin to tell upon 
her as upon the rest o’ us.’ 

Stephen told Martin where to find his baggage, and 
then continued his journey homeward in the company 
of his father. 

4 Owing to your coming a day sooner than we first 
expected/ said John, ‘ you’ll find us in a turk of a mess, 
sir — “ sir,” says I to my own son ! but ye’ve gone up 
so, Stephen. We’ve killed the pig this morning for ye, 
thinking ye’d be hungry, and glad of a morsel of fresh 
mate. And ’a won’t be cut up till to-night. However, 
we can make ye a good supper of fry, which will chaw 
up well wi’ a dab o’ mustard and a few nice new taters, 
and a drop of shilling ale to wash it down. Your 
mother have scrubbed the house through because ye 
were coming, and dusted all the chimmer furniture, and 
bought a new basin and jug of a travelling crockery- 
woman that came to our door, and scoured the cannel- 
sticks, and claned the winders ! Ay, I don’t know w 7 hat 
’a ha’n’t a done. Never were such a steer, ’a b’lieve.’ 

Conversation of this kind and inquiries of Stephen 
for his mother’s wellbeing occupied them for the 
remainder of the journey. When they drew near the 
river, and the cottage behind it, they could hear the 
master-mason’s clock striking off the bygone hours of 
the day at intervals of a quarter of a minute, during 
which intervals Stephen’s imagination readily pictured 
his mother’s forefinger wandering round the dial in 
company with the minute-hand. 

‘ The clock stopped this morning, and your mother 
in putting en right seemingly,’ said his father in an 
explanatory tone; and they went up the garden to 
the door. 

When they had entered, and Stephen had dutifully 
266 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


and warmly greeted his mother — who appeared in a 
cotton dress of a dark-blue ground, covered broadcast 
with a multitude of new and full moons, stars, and 
planets, with an occasional dash of a comet-like aspect 
to diversify the scene — the crackle of cart-wheels was 
heard outside, and Martin Cannister stamped in at the 
doorway, in the form of a pair of legs beneath a great 
box, his body being nowhere visible. When the luggage 
had been all taken down, and Stephen had gone upstairs 
to change his clothes, Mrs. Smith’s mind seemed to 
recover a lost thread. 

* Really our clock is not worth a penny,* she said, 
turning to it and attempting to start the pendulum. 

‘ Stopped again ? * inquired Martin with commisera- 
tion. 

‘Yes, sure,’ replied Mrs. Smith; and continued 
after the manner of certain matrons, to whose tongues 
the harmony of a subject with a casual mood is a 
greater recommendation than its pertinence to the 
occasion, ‘John would spend pounds a year upon the 
jimcrack old thing, if he might, in having it claned, 
when at the same time you may doctor it yourself as 
well. “ The clock’s stopped again, John,” I say to him. 
“ Better have en claned,” says he. There’s five shillings. 
“ That clock grinds again,” I say to en. “ Better have 
en claned,” ’a says again. “ That clock strikes wrong, 
John,” says I. “ Better have en claned,” he goes on. 
The wheels would have been polished to skeletons by 
this time if I had listened to en, and I assure you we 
could have bought a chainey-faced beauty wi’ the good 
money we’ve flung away these last ten years upon this 
old green-faced mortal. And, Martin, you must be 
wet. My son is gone up to change. John is damper 
than I should like to be, but ’a calls it nothing. Some 
of Mrs. Swancourt’s servants have been here — they ran 
in out of the rain when going for a walk — and I assure 
you the state of their bonnets was frightful.’ 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


* How’s the folks ? We’ve been over to Castle 
Boterel, and what wi’ running and stopping out of the 
storms, my poor head is beyond everything ! fizz, fizz, 
fizz ; ’tis frying o’ fish from morning to night,’ said a 
cracked voice in the doorway at this instant. 

‘ Lord so’s, who’s that ? ’ said Mrs. Smith, in a 
private exclamation, and turning round saw William 
Worm, endeavouring to make himself look passing 
civil and friendly by overspreading his face with a 
large smile that seemed to have no connection with 
the humour he was in. Behind him stood a woman 
about twice his size, with a large umbrella over her 
head. This was Mrs. Worm, William’s wife. 

‘Come in, William,’ said John Smith. r We don’t 
kill a pig every day. And you, likewise, Mrs. Worm. 
I make ye welcome. Since ye left Parson Swancourt, 
William, I don’t see much of ’ee.’ 

* No, for to tell the truth, since I took to the turn- 
pike-gate line, I’ve been out but little, coming to church 
o’ Sundays not being my duty now, as ’twas in a par- 
son’s family, you see. However, our boy is able to 
mind the gate now, and I said, says I, “ Barbara, let’s 
call and see John Smith.” ’ 

‘ I am sorry to hear yer pore head is so bad still.’ 

‘ Ay, I assure you that frying o’ fish is going on for 
nights and days. And, you know, sometimes ’tisn’t 
only fish, but rashers o’ bacon and inions. Ay, I can 
hear the fat pop and fizz as nateral as life; can’t l, 
Barbara ? ’ 

Mrs. Worm, who had been all this time engaged in 
closing her umbrella, corroborated this statement, and 
now, coming indoors, showed herself to be a wide-faced, 
comfortable-looking woman, with a wart upon her cheek, 
bearing a small tuft of hair in its centre. 

‘ Have ye ever tried anything to cure yer noise, 
Maister Worm ? ’ inquired Martin Cannister. 

1 Oh ay ; bless ye, I’ve tried everything. Ay, Provi- 
268 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


dence is a merciful man, and I have hoped He’d have 
found it out by this time, living so many years in a 
parson’s family, too, as I have, but ’a don’t seem to 
relieve me. Ay, I be a poor wambling man, and life’s 
a mint o’ trouble ! ’ 

‘ True, mournful true, William Worm. ’Tis so. 
The world wants looking to, or ’tis all sixes and 
sevens wi’ us.’ 

‘ Take your things off, Mrs. Worm,’ said Mrs. Smith. 
‘ We be rather in a muddle, to tell the truth, for my 
son is just dropped in from Indy a day sooner than 
we expected, and the pig-killer is coming presently to 
cut up.’ 

Mrs. Barbara Worm, not wishing to take any mean 
advantage of persons in a muddle by observing them, 
removed her bonnet and mantle with eyes fixed upon 
the flowers in the plot outside the door. 

‘ What beautiful tiger-lilies ! ’ said Mrs. Worm. 

* Yes, they be very well, but such a trouble to me on 
account of the children that come here. They will go 
eating the berries on the stem, and call ’em currants. 
Taste wi’ junivals is quite fancy, really.’ 

* And your snapdragons look as fierce as ever.’ 

‘Well, really,’ answered Mrs. Smith, entering didacti- 
cally into the subject, ‘ they are more like Christians 
than flowers. But they make up well enough wi’ the 
rest, and don’t require much tending. And the same 
can be said o’ these miller’s wheels. ’Tis a flower I 
like very much, though so simple. John says he never 
cares about the flowers o’ ’em, but men have no eye for 
anything neat. He says his favourite flower is a cauli- 
flower. And I assure you I tremble in the springtime, 
for ’tis perfect murder.’ 

‘ You don’t say so, Mrs. Smith ! ’ 

‘ John digs round the roots, you know. In goes his 
blundering spade, through roots, bulbs, everything that 
hasn’t got a good show above ground, turning ’em up 
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A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


cut all to slices. Only the very last fall I went to move 
some tulips, when I found every bulb upside down, 
and the stems crooked round. He had turned ’em 
over in the spring, and the cunning creatures had soon 
found that heaven was not where it used to be.’ 

‘ What’s that long-favoured flower under the hedge ? ’ 

‘They? O Lord, they are the horrid Jacob’s 
ladders ! Instead of praising ’em, I be mad wi’ ’em 
for being so ready to bide where they are not wanted. 
They be very well in their way, but I do not care for 
things that neglect won’t kill. Do what I will, dig, 
drag, scrap, pull, I get too many of ’em. I chop the 
roots : up they’ll come, treble strong. Throw ’em over 
hedge; there they’ll grow, staring me in the face like 
a hungry dog driven away, and creep back again in a 
week or two the same as before. ’Tis Jacob’s ladder 
here, Jacob’s ladder there, and plant ’em where nothing 
in the world will grow, you get crowds of ’em in a 
month or two. John made a new manure mixen last 
summer, and he said, “ Maria, now if you’ve got any 
flowers or such like, that you don’t want, you may plant 
’em round my mixen so as to hide it a bit, though ’tis 
not likely anything of much value will grow there.” I 
thought, “ There’s them Jacob’s ladders ; I’ll put them 
there, since they can’t do harm in such a place ; ” and 
I planted the Jacob’s ladders sure enough. They 
growed, and they growed, in the mixen and out of the 
mixen, all over the litter, covering it quite up. When 
John wanted to use it about the garden, ’a said, 
“ Nation seize them Jacob’s ladders of yours, Maria ! 
They’ve eat the goodness out of every morsel of my 
manure, so that ’tis no better than sand itself ! ” Sure 
enough the hungry mortals had. ’Tis my belief that in 
the secret souls o’ ’em, Jacob’s ladders be weeds, and 
not flowers at all, if the truth was known.’ 

• Robert Lickpan, pig-killer and carrier, arrived at this 
moment. The fatted animal hanging in the back 
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kitchen was cleft down the middle of its backbone, 
Mrs. Smith being meanwhile engaged in cooking 
supper. 

Between the cutting and chopping, ale was handed 
round, and Worm and the pig-killer listened to John 
Smith’s description of the meeting with Stephen, with 
eyes blankly fixed upon the table-cloth, in order that 
nothing in the external world should interrupt their 
efforts to conjure up the scene correctly. 

Stephen came downstairs in the middle of the story, 
and after the little interruption occasioned by his 
entrance and welcome, the narrative was again con- 
tinued, precisely as if he had not been there at all, and 
was told inclusively to him, as to somebody who knew 
nothing about the matter. 

‘ “ Ay,” I said, as I catched sight o’ en through the 
brimbles, “ that’s the lad, for I d’ know en by his grand- 
father’s walk ; ” for ’a stapped out like poor father for 
all the world. Still there was a touch o’ the frisky that 
set me wondering. ’A got closer, and I said, “ That’s 
the lad, for I d’ know en by his carrying a black case 
like a travelling man.” Still, a road is common to all 
the world, and there be more travelling men than one_ 
But I kept my eye cocked, and I said to Martin, “ ’Tis 
the boy, now, for I d’ know en by the wold twirl o’ the 
stick and the family step.” Then ’a come closer, and 
a’ said, “ All right.” I could swear to en then.’ 

Stephen’s personal appearance was next criticised. 

‘ He d’ look a deal thinner in face, surely, than when 
I seed en at the parson’s, and never knowed en, if ye’ll 
believe me,’ said Martin. 

‘ Ay, there,’ said another, without removing his eyes 
from Stephen’s face, 1 1 should ha’ knowed en anywhere. 
’Tis his father’s nose to a t.’ 

* It has been often remarked,’ said Stephen modestly. 

* And he’s certainly taller,’ said Martin, letting his 
glance run over Stephen’s form from bottom to top. 

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•I was thinking ’a was exactly the same height/ 
Worm replied. 

‘ Bless thy soul, that’s because he’s bigger round 
likewise.’ And the united eyes all moved to Stephen’s 
waist. 

‘ I be a poor wambling man, but I can make allow- 
ances,’ said William Worm. ‘ Ah, sure, and how he 
came as a stranger and pilgrim to Parson Swancourt’s 
that time, not a soul knowing en after so many years ! 
Ay, life’s a strange picter, Stephen : but I suppose I 
must say Sir to ye ? ’ 

‘ Oh, it is not necessary at present,’ Stephen replied, 
though mentally resolving to avoid the vicinity of that 
familiar friend as soon as he had made pretensions to 
the hand of Elfride. 

‘ Ah, well,’ said Worm musingly, ‘ some would have 
looked for no less than a Sir. There’s a sight of differ- 
ence in people.’ 

‘And in pigs likewise,’ observed John Smith, look- 
ing at the halved carcass of his own. 

Robert Lickpan, the pig-killer, here seemed called 
upon to enter the lists of conversation. 

‘Yes, they’ve got their particular naters good-now,’ 
he remarked initially. ‘ Many’s the rum-tempered pig 
I’ve knowed.’ 

‘ I don’t doubt it, Master Lickpan,’ answered Martin, 
in a tone expressing that his convictions, no less than 
good manners, demanded the reply. 

‘Yes,’ continued the pig-killer, as one accustomed 
to be heard. * One that I knowed was deaf and dumb, 
and we couldn’t make out what was the matter wi’ the 
pig. ’A would eat well enough when ’a seed the 
trough, but when his back was turned, you might 
a-rattled the bucket all day, the poor soul never heard 
ye. Ye could play tricks upon en behind his back, 
and a’ wouldn’t find it out no quicker than poor deaf 
Grammer Cates. But a’ fatted well, and I never seed 
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A. PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


a pig open better when a’ was killed, and ’a was very 
tender eating, very ; as pretty a bit of mate as ever you 
see ; you could suck that mate through a quill. 

‘ And another I knowed,’ resumed the killer, after 
quietly letting a pint of ale run down his throat of its 
own accord, and setting down the cup with mathe- 
matical exactness upon the spot from which he had 
raised it — 1 another went out of his mind.’ 

1 How very mournful ! * murmured Mrs. Worm. 

1 Ay, poor thing, ’a did ! As clean out of his mind 
as the cleverest Christian could go. In early life ’a 
was very melancholy, and never seemed a hopeful pig 
by no means. ’Twas Andrew Stainer’s pig — that’s 
whose pig ’twas.’ 

‘ I can mind the pig well enough,’ attested John 
Smith. 

‘ And a pretty little porker ’a was. And you all 
know Farmer Buckle’s sort? Every jack o’ em suffer 
from the rheumatism to this day, owing to a damp sty 
they lived in when they were striplings, as ’twere.’ 

‘ Well, now we’ll weigh,’ said John. 

‘ If so be he were not so fine, we’d weigh en whole : 
but as he is, we’ll take a side at a time. John, you 
can mind my old joke, ey ? ’ 

‘ I do so ; though ’twas a good few years ago I first 
heard en.’ 

‘ Yes,’ said Lickpan, ‘ that there old familiar joke 
have been in our family for generations, I may say. 
My father used that joke regular at pig-killings for 
more than five and forty years — the time he followed 
the calling. And ’a told me that ’a had it from his 
father when he was quite a chiel, who made use o’ en 
just the same at every killing more or less ; and pig- 
killings were pig-killings in those days.’ 

‘ Trewly they were.’ 

‘ IVe never heard the joke,’ said Mrs. Smith 
tentatively. 


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A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


‘Nor 1/ chimed in Mrs. Worm, who, being the 
only other lady in the room, felt bound by the laws of 
courtesy to feel like Mrs. Smith in everything. 

* Surely, surely you have,’ said the killer, looking 
sceptically at the benighted females. ‘ However, ’tisn’t 
much — I don’t wish to say it is. It commences like 
this : “ Bob will tell the weight of your pig, ’a b’lieve,” 
says I. The congregation of neighbours think I mane 
my son Bob, naturally; but the secret is that I mane 
the bob o’ the steelyard. Ha, ha, ha ! ’ 

‘ Haw, haw, haw ! ’ laughed Martin Cannister, who 
had heard the explanation of this striking story for the 
hundredth time. 

* Huh, huh, huh ! ’ laughed John Smith, who had 
heard it for the thousandth. 

‘ Hee, hee, hee ! ’ laughed William Worm, who had 
never heard it at all, but was afraid to say so. 

‘Thy grandfather, Robert, must have been a wide- 
awake chap to make that story,’ said Martin Cannister, 
subsiding to a placid aspect of delighted criticism. 

‘ He had a head, by all account. And, you see, as 
the first-born of the Lickpans have all been Roberts, 
they’ve all been Bobs, so the story was handed down 
to the present day.’ 

* Poor Joseph, your second boy, will never be able 
to bring it out in company, which is rather unfortunate,’ 
said Mrs. Worm thoughtfully. 

‘ ’A won’t. Yes, grandfer was a clever chap, as ye 
say; but I knowed a cleverer. ’Twas my uncle Levi. 
Uncle Levi made a snuff-box that should be a puzzle 
to his friends to open. He used to hand en round at 
wedding parties, christenings, funerals, and in other 
jolly company, and let ’em try their skill. This extra- 
ordinary snuff-box had a spring behind that would push 
in and out — a hinge where seemed to be the cover; a 
slide at the end, a screw in front, and knobs and queer 
notches everywhere. One man would try the spring, 
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A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


another would try the screw, another would try the 
slide; but try as they would, the box wouldn’t opea 
And they couldn’t open en, and they didn’t open en. 
Now what might you think was the secret of that box?' 

All put on an expression that their united thoughts 
were inadequate to the occasion. 

‘ Why the box wouldn’t open at all. ’A were made 
not to open, and ye might have tried till the end of 
Revelations, ’twould have been as naught, for the box 
were glued all round.’ 

‘ A very deep man to have made such a box.’ 

* Yes. ’Twas like uncle Levi all over.’ 

‘ ’Twas. I can mind the man very well. Tallest 
man ever I seed.’ 

‘ ’A was so. He never slept upon a bedstead after 
he growed up a hard boy-chap — never could get one 
long enough. When ’a lived in that little small house 
by the pond, he used to have to leave open his chamber 
door every night at going to his bed, and let his feet 
poke out upon the landing.’ 

* He’s dead and gone now, nevertheless, poor man, 
as we all shall,’ observed Worm, to fill the pause which 
followed the conclusion of Robert Lickpan’s speech. 

The weighing and cutting up was pursued amid an 
animated discourse on Stephen’s travels; and at the 
finish, the first-fruits of the day’s slaughter, fried in 
onions, were then turned from the pan into a dish on 
the table, each piece steaming and hissing till it reached 
their very mouths. 

It must be owned that the gentlemanly son of the 
house looked rather out of place in the course of this 
operation. Nor was his mind quite philosophic enough 
to allow him to be comfortable with these old-established 
persons, his father’s friends. He had never lived long 
at home — scarcely at all since his childhood. The pre- 
sence of William Worm was the most awkward feature 
of the case, for, though Worm had left the house of Mr. 
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A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


Swancourt, the being hand-in-glove with a ci-devant 
servitor reminded Stephen too forcibly of the vicar’s 
classification of himself before he -went from England. 
Mrs. Smith was conscious of the defect in her arrange- 
ments which had brought about the undesired conjunc- 
tion. She spoke to Stephen privately. 

‘ I am above having such people here, Stephen ; but 
what could I do? And your father is so rough in 
his nature that he’s more mixed up with them than 
need be.’ 

* Never mind, mother,’ said Stephen ; * I’ll put up 
with it now.’ 

* When we leave my lord’s service, and get further 
up the country — as I hope we shall soon — it will be 
different. We shall be among fresh people, and in a 
larger house, and shall keep ourselves up a bit, I 
hope.’ 

‘ Is Miss Swancourt at home, do you know ? ’ Stephen 
inquired 

* Yes, your father saw her this morning.’ 

* Do you often see her ? ’ 

* Scarcely ever. Mr. Glim, the curate, calls occasion- 
ally, but the Swancourts don’t come into the village 
now any more than to drive through it. They dine at 
my lord’s oftener than they used. Ah, here’s a note 
was brought this morning for you by a boy.’ 

Stephen eagerly took the note and opened it, his 
mother watching him. He read what Elfride had 
written and sent before she started for the cliff that 
afternoon : 

* Yes ; I will meet you in the church at nine to- 
night. — E. S.’ 

* I don’t know, Stephen,’ his mother said meaningly, 

‘ whe’r you still think about Miss Elfride, but if I were 
you I wouldn’t concern about her. They say that none 

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A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


of old Mrs. Swancourt’s money will come to her step- 
daughter.’ 

1 1 see the evening has turned out fine ; I am going 
out for a little while to look round the place,’ he said, 
evading the direct query. ‘ Probably by the time I 
return our visitors will be gone, and we’ll have a more 
confidential talk.’ 


XXIV 


* Breeze, bird, and flower confess the hour.’ 

The rain had ceased since the sunset, but it was a 
cloudy night ; and the light of the moon, softened and 
dispersed by its misty veil, was distributed over the 
land in pale gray. 

A dark figure stepped from the doorway of John 
Smith’s river-side cottage, and strode rapidly towards 
West Endelstow with a light footstep. Soon ascending 
fiom the lower levels he turned a corner, fallowed a 
cart-track, and saw the tower of the church he was in 
quest of distinctly shaped forth against the sky. In 
less than half an hour from the time of starting he 
swung himself over the churchyard stile. 

The wild irregular enclosure was as much as ever 
an integral part of the old hill. The grass was still 
long, the graves were shaped precisely as passing years 
chose to alter them from their orthodox form as laid 
down by Martin Cannister, and by Stephen’s own 
grandfather before him. 

A sound sped into the air from the direction in 
which Castle Boterel lay. It was the striking of the 
church clock, distinct in the still atmosphere as if 
it had come from the tower hard by, which, wrapt 
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in its solitary silentness, gave out no such sounds 
of life. 

‘ One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine.’ 
Stephen carefully counted the strokes, though he well 
knew their number beforehand. Nine o’clock. It was 
the hour Elfride had herself named as the most con- 
venient for meeting him. 

Stephen stood at the door of the porch and listened. 
He could have heard the softest breathing of any person 
within the porch; nobody was there. He went inside 
the doorway, sat down upon the stone bench, and waited 
with a beating heart. 

The faint sounds heard only accentuated the silence. 
The rising and falling of the sea, far away along the 
coast, was the most important. A minor sound was 
the scurr of a distant night-hawk. Among the minutest 
where all were minute were the light settlement of 
gossamer fragments floating in the air, a toad humbly 
labouring along through the grass near the entrance, 
the crackle of a dead leaf which a worm was endea- 
vouring to pull into the earth, a waft of air, getting 
nearer and nearer, and expiring at his feet under the 
burden of a winged seed. 

Among all these soft sounds came not the only soft 
sound he cared to hear — the footfall of Elfride. 

For a whole quarter of an hour Stephen sat thus 
intent, without moving a muscle. At the end of that 
time he walked to the west front of the church. Turn- 
ing the corner of the tower, a white form stared him in 
the face. He started back, and recovered himself. 
It was the tomb of young farmer Jethway, looking still 
as fresh and as new as when it was first erected, the 
white stone in which it was hewn having a singular 
weirdness amid the dark blue slabs from local quarries, 
of which the whole remaining gravestones were formed. 

He thought of the night when he had sat thereon 
with Elfride as his companion, and well remembered 
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A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


his regret that she had received, even unwillingly, 
earlier homage than his own. But his present tangible 
anxiety reduced such a feeling to sentimental nonsense 
in comparison ; and he strolled on over the graves to 
the border of the churchyard, whence in the daytime 
could be clearly seen the vicarage and the present 
residence of the Swancourts. No footstep was dis- 
cernible upon the path up the hill, but a light was 
shining from a window in the last-named house. 

Stephen knew there could be no mistake about the 
time or place, and no difficulty about keeping the 
engagement. He waited yet longer, passing from 
impatience into a mood which failed to take any 
account of the lapse of time. He was awakened from 
his reverie by Castle Boterel clock. 

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 
TEN. 

One little fall of the hammer in addition to the 
number it had been sharp pleasure to hear, and what 
a difference to him ! 

He left the churchyard on the side opposite to his 
point of entrance, and went down the hill. Slowly he 
drew near the gate of her house. This he softly 
opened, and walked up the gravel drive to the door. 
Here he paused for several minutes. 

At the expiration of that time the murmured speech 
of a manly voice came out to his ears through an open 
window behind the corner of the house. This was 
responded to by a clear soft laugh. It was the laugh 
of Elfride. 

Stephen was conscious of a gnawing pain at his 
heart. He retreated as he had come. There are 
disappointments which wring us, and there are those 
which inflict a wound whose mark we bear to our graves. 
Such are so keen that no future gratification of the 
same desire can ever obliterate them : they become 
registered as a permanent loss of happiness. Such a 
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A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


one was Stephen’s now : the crowning aureola of the 
dream had been the meeting here by stealth; and if 
Elfride had come to him only ten minutes after he 
had turned away, the disappointment would have been 
recognizable still. 

When the young man reached home he found there 
a letter which had arrived in his absence. Believing 
it to contain some reason for her non-appearance, yet 
unable to imagine one that could justify her, he hastily 
tore open the envelope. 

The paper contained not a word from Elfride. It 
was the deposit-note for his two hundred pounds. 
On the back was the form of a cheque, and this she 
had filled up with the same sum, payable to the 
bearer. 

Stephen was confounded. He attempted to divine 
her motive. Considering how limited was his know- 
ledge of her later actions, he guessed rather shrewdly 
that, between the time of her sending the note in the 
morning and the evening’s silent refusal of his gift, 
something had occurred which had caused a total 
change in her attitude towards him. 

He knew not what to do. It seemed absurd now 
to go to her father next morning, as he had purposed, 
and ask for an engagement with her, a possibility im- 
pending all the while that Elfride herself would not be 
on his side. Only one course recommended itself as 
wise. To wait and see what the days would bring 
forth ; to go and execute his commissions in Birming- 
ham ; then to return, learn if anything had happened, 
and try what a meeting might do ; perhaps her surprise 
at his backwardness would bring her forward to show 
latent warmth as decidedly as in old times. 

This act of patience was in keeping only with the 
nature of a man precisely of Stephen’s constitution. 
Nine men out of ten would perhaps have rushed off, 
got into her presence, by fair means or foul, and pro- 
t 281 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


yoked a catastrophe of some sort. Possibly for the 
better, probably for the worse. 

He started for Birmingham the next morning. A 
day's delay would have made no difference; but he 
could not rest until he had begun and ended the pro- 
gramme proposed to himself. Bodily activity will 
sometimes take the sting out of anxiety as completely 
as assurance itself. 


XXV 

•Mine own familiar friend.* 

During these days of absence Stephen lived under 
alternate conditions. Whenever his emotions were 
active, he was in agony. Whenever he was not in 
agony, the business in hand had driven out of his 
mind by sheer force all deep reflection on the subject 
of Elfride and love. 

By the time he took his return journey at the week’s 
end, Stephen had very nearly worked himself up to an 
intention to call and see her face to face. On this 
occasion also he adopted his favourite route — by the 
little summer steamer from Bristol to Castle Boterel ; 
the time saved by speed on the railway being wasted 
at junctions, and in following a devious course. 

It was a bright silent evening at the beginning of 
September when Smith again set foot in the little town. 
He felt inclined to linger awhile upon the quay before 
ascending the hills, having formed a romantic inten- 
tion to go home by way of her house, yet not wishing 
to wander in its neighbourhood till the evening shades 
should sufficiently screen him from observation. 

And thus waiting for night’s nearer approach, he 
watched the placid scene, over which the pale luminosity 
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A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


of the west cast a sorrowful monochrome, that became 
slowly embrowned by the dusk. A star appeared, and 
another, and another. They sparkled amid the yards 
and rigging of the two coal brigs lying alongside, as if 
they had been tiny lamps suspended in the ropes. The 
masts rocked sleepily to the infinitesimal flux of the tide, 
which clucked and gurgled with idle regularity in nooks 
and holes of the harbour wall. 

The twilight was now quite pronounced enough for 
his purpose ; and as, rather sad at heart, he was about 
to move on, a little boat containing two persons glided 
up the middle of the harbour with the lightness of a 
shadow. The boat came opposite him, passed on, and 
touched the landing-steps at the further end. One of 
its occupants was a man, as Stephen had known by the 
easy stroke of the oars. When the pair ascended the 
steps, and came into greater prominence, he was enabled 
to discern that the second personage was a woman; 
also that she wore a white decoration — apparently a 
feather — in her hat or bonnet, which spot of white was 
the only distinctly visible portion of her clothing. 

Stephen remained a moment in their rear, and they 
passed on, when he pursued his way also, and soon 
forgot the circumstance. Having crossed a bridge, 
forsaken the high road, and entered the footpath which 
led up the vale to West Endelstow, he heard a little 
wicket click softly together some yards ahead. By the 
time that Stephen had reached the wicket and passed 
it, he heard another click of precisely the same nature 
from another gate yet further on. Clearly some person 
or persons were preceding him along the path, their 
footsteps being rendered noiseless by the soft carpet 
of turf. Stephen now walked a little quicker, and per- 
ceived two forms. One of them bore aloft the white 
feather he had noticed in the woman’s hat on the quay : 
they were the couple he had seen in the boat. Stephen 
dropped a little further to the rear. 

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A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


From the bottom of the valley, along which the path 
had hitherto lain, beside the margin of the trickling 
streamlet, another path now diverged, and ascended 
the slope of the left-hand hill. This footway led only 
to the residence of Mrs. Swancourt and a cottage or 
two in its vicinity. No grass covered this diverging 
path in portions of its length, and Stephen was re- 
minded that the pair in front of him had taken this 
route by the occasional rattle of loose stones under 
their feet. Stephen climbed in the same direction, 
but for some undefined reason he trod more softly than 
did those preceding him. His mind was unconsciously 
in exercise upon whom the woman might be — whether 
a visitor to The Crags, a servant, or Elfride. He put 
it to himself yet more forcibly; could the lady be 
Elfride ? A possible reason for her unaccountable 
failure to keep the appointment with him returned 
with painful force. 

They entered the grounds of the house by the side 
wicket, whence the path, now wide and well trimmed, 
wound fantastically through the shrubbery to an octa- 
gonal pavilion called the Belvedere, by reason of the 
comprehensive view over the adjacent district that its 
green seats afforded. The path passed this erection 
and went on to the house as well as to the gardener’s 
cottage on the other side, straggling thence to East 
Endelstow ; so that Stephen felt no hesitation in 
entering a promenade which could scarcely be called 
private. 

He fancied that he heard the gate open and swing 
together again behind him. Turning, he saw nobody. 

The people of the boat came to the summer-house. 
One of them spoke. 

‘ I am afraid we shall get a scolding for being so 
late.’ 

Stephen instantly recognised the familiar voice, 
richer and fuller now than it used to be. ‘ Elfride 1 ’ 
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A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


he whispered to himself, and held fast by a sapling, to 
steady himself under the agitation her presence caused 
him. His heart swerved from its beat; he shunned 
receiving the meaning he sought. 

* A breeze is rising again ; how the ash tree rustles ! ’ 
said Elfride. ‘ Don’t you hear it ? I wonder what the 
time is.’ 

Stephen relinquished the sapling. 

‘ I will get a light and tell you. Step into the 
summer-house ; the air is quiet there.’ 

The cadence of that voice — its peculiarity seemed 
to come home to him like that of some notes of the 
northern birds on his return to his native clime, as an 
Did natural thing renewed, yet not particularly noticed 
is natural before that renewal. 

They entered the Belvedere. In the lower part it 
was formed of close wood-work nailed crosswise, and 
had openings in the upper by way of windows. 

The scratch of a striking light was heard, and a bright 
glow radiated from the interior of the building. The 
light gave birth to dancing leaf-shadows, stem-shadows, 
lustrous streaks, dots, sparkles, and threads of silver 
sheen of all imaginable variety and transience. It 
awakened gnats, which flew towards it, revealed shiny 
gossamer threads, disturbed earthworms. Stephen gave 
but little attention to these phenomena, and less time. 
He saw in the summer-house a strongly illuminated 
picture. 

First, the face of his friend and preceptor Henry 
Knight, between whom and himself an estrangement 
had arisen, not from any definite causes beyond those 
of absence, increasing age, and diverging sympathies. 

Next, his bright particular star, Elfride. The face 
of Elfride was more womanly than when she had called 
herself his, but as clear and healthy as ever. Her 
plenteous twines of beautiful hair were looking much 
as usual, with the exception of a slight modification 
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A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 

in their arrangement in deference to the changes of 
fashion. 

Their two foreheads were close together, almost 
touching, and both were looking down. Elfride was 
holding her watch, Knight was holding the light with 
one hand, his left arm being round her waist. Part of 
the scene reached Stephen’s eyes through the horizontal 
bars of woodwork, which crossed their forms like the 
ribs of a skeleton. 

Knight’s arm stole still further round the waist of 
Elfride. 

‘ It is half-past eight,’ she said in a low voice, which 
had a peculiar music in it, seemingly born of a thrill of 
pleasure at the new proof that she was beloved. 

The flame dwindled down, died away, and all was 
wrapped in a darkness to which the gloom before the 
illumination bore no comparison in apparent density. 
Stephen, shattered in spirit and sick to his heart’s 
centre, turned away. In turning, he saw a shadowy 
outline behind the summer-house on the other side. 
His eyes grew accustomed to the darkness. Was the 
form a human form, or was it an opaque bush of 
juniper ? 

The lovers arose, brushed against the lau res tines, 
and pursued their way to the house. The indistinct 
figure had moved, and now passed across Smith’s front. 
So completely enveloped was the person, that it was im- 
possible to discern him or her any more than as a shape. 
The shape glided noiselessly on. 

Stephen stepped forward, fearing any mischief was 
intended to the other two. ‘ Who are you ? ’ he said. 

‘ Never mind who I am,’ answered a weak whisper 
from the enveloping folds. ‘ What I am, may she be ! 
Perhaps I knew well — ah, so well ! — a youth whose 
place you took, as he there now takes yours. Will you 
let her break your heart, and bring you to an untimely 
grave, as she did the one before you ? ’ 

287 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


‘You are Mrs. Jethway, I think. What do you do 
here ? And why do you talk so wildly ? ’ 

‘ Because my heart is desolate, and nobody cares 
about it. May hers be so that brought trouble upon 
me ! * 

1 Silence ! ’ said Stephen, staunch to Elfride in spite 
of himself. ‘ She would harm nobody wilfully, never 
would she ! How do you come here ? * 

‘ I saw the two coming up the path, and wanted to 
learn if she were not one of them. Can I help disliking 
her if I think of the past ? Can I help watching her if 
I remember my boy ? Can I help ill-wishing her if I 
well-wish him ? 9 

The bowed form went on, passed through the wicket, 
and was enveloped by the shadows of the field. 

Stephen had heard that Mrs. Jethway, since the 
death of her son, had become a crazed, forlorn woman ; 
and bestowing a pitying thought upon her, he dismissed 
her fancied wrongs from his mind, but not her condem- 
nation of Elfride’s faithlessness. That entered into and 
mingled with the sensations his new experience had 
begotten. The tale told by the little scene he had wit- 
nessed ran parallel with the unhappy woman’s opinion, 
which, however baseless it might have been antecedently, 
had become true enough as regarded himself. 

A slow weight of despair, as distinct from a violent 
paroxysm as starvation from a mortal shot, filled him 
and wrung him body and soul. The discovery had not 
been altogether unexpected, for throughout his anxiety 
of the last few days since the night in the churchyard, 
he had been inclined to construe the uncertainty un- 
favourably for himself. His hopes for the best had 
been but periodic interruptions to a chronic fear of the 
worst. 

A strange concomitant of his misery was the singu- 
larity of its form. That his rival should be Knight, 
whom once upon a time he had adored as a man is 

288 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


very rarely adored by another in modern times, and 
whom he loved now, added deprecation to sorrow, and 
cynicism to both. Henry Knight, whose praises he 
had so frequently trumpeted in her ears, of whom she 
had actually been jealous, lest she herself should be 
lessened in Stephen’s love on account of him, had pro- 
bably won her the more easily by reason of those very 
praises which he had only ceased to utter by her com- 
mand. She had ruled him like a queen in that matter, 
as in all others. Stephen could tell by her manner, 
brief as had been his observation of it, and by her 
words, few as they were, that her position was far 
different with Knight. That she looked up at and 
adored her new lover from below his pedestal, was 
even more perceptible than that she had smiled down 
upon Stephen from a height above him. 

The suddenness of Elfride’s renunciation of himself 
was food for more torture. To an unimpassioned out- 
sider, it admitted of at least two interpretations — it 
might either have proceeded from an endeavour to be 
faithful to her first choice, till the lover seen absolutely 
overpowered the lover remembered, or from a wish not 
to lose his love till sure of the love of another. But 
to Stephen Smith the motive involved in the latter 
alternative made it untenable where Elfride was the 
actor. 

He mused on her letters to him, in which she had 
never mentioned a syllable concerning Knight. It is 
desirable, however, to observe that only in two letters 
could she possibly have done so. One was written 
about a week before Knight’s arrival, when, though 
she did not mention his promised coming to Stephen, 
she had hardly a definite reason in her mind for 
neglecting to do it. In the next she did casually 
allude to Knight. But Stephen had left Bombay long 
before that letter arrived. 

Stephen looked at the black form of the adjacent 
289 t 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


house, where it cut a dark polygonal notch out of the 
sky, and felt that he hated the spot. He did not know 
many facts of the case, but could not help instinctively 
associating Elfride’s fickleness with the marriage of her 
father, and their introduction to London society. He 
closed the iron gate bounding the shrubbery as noise- 
lessly as he had opened it, and went into the grassy 
field. Here he could see the old vicarage, the house 
alone that was associated with the sweet pleasant time 
of his incipient love for Elfride. Turning sadly from 
the place that was no longer a nook in which his 
thoughts might nestle when he was far away, he wan- 
dered in the direction of the east village, to reach his 
father’s house before they retired to rest. 

The nearest way to the cottage was by crossing the 
park. He did not hurry. Happiness frequently has 
reason for haste, but it is seldom that desolation need 
scramble or strain. Sometimes he paused under the 
low-hanging arms of the trees, looking vacantly on the 
ground. 

Stephen was standing thus, scarcely less crippled 
in thought than he was blank in vision, when a clear 
sound permeated the quiet air about him, and spread 
on far beyond. The sound was the stroke of a bell 
from the tower of East Endelstow Church, which stood 
in a dell not forty yards from Lord Luxellian’s mansion, 
and within the park enclosure. Another stroke greeted 
his ear, and gave character to both : then came a slow 
succession of them. 

* Somebody is dead,’ he said aloud. 

The death - knell of an inhabitant of the eastern 
parish was being tolled. 

An unusual feature in the tolling was that it had 
not been begun according to the custom in Endelstow 
and other parishes in the neighbourhood. At every 
death the sex and age of the deceased were announced 
by a system of changes. Three times three strokes 
290 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


signified that the departed one was a man ; three times 
two, a woman ; twice three, a boy^ twice two, a girl. 
The regular continuity of the tolling suggested that it 
was the resumption rather than the beginning of a 
knell — the opening portion of which Stephen had not 
been near enough to hear. 

The momentary anxiety he had felt with regard to 
his parents passed away. He had left them in perfect 
health, and had any serious illness seized either, a com- 
munication would have reached him ere this. At the 
same time, since his way homeward lay under the 
churchyard yews, he resolved to look into the belfry 
in passing by, and speak a word to Martin Cannister, 
who would be there. 

Stephen reached the brow of the hill, and felt 
inclined to renounce his idea. His mood was such 
that talking to any person to whom he could not 
unburden himself would be wearisome. However, 
before he could put any inclination into effect, the 
young man saw from amid the trees a bright light 
shining, the rays from which radiated like needles 
through the sad plumy foliage of the yews. Its direc- 
tion was from the centre of the churchyard. 

Stephen mechanically went forward. Never could 
there be a greater contrast between two places of like 
purpose than between this graveyard and that of the 
further village. Here the grass was carefully tended, 
and formed virtually a part of the manor-house lawn ; 
flowers and shrubs being planted indiscriminately over 
both, whilst the few graves visible were mathematically 
exact in shape and smoothness, appearing in the day- 
time like chins newly shaven. There was no wall, the 
division between Gcd’s Acre and Lord Luxellian’s 
being marked only by a few square stones set at 
equidistant points. Among those persons who have 
romantic sentiments on the subject of their last dwell- 
ing-place, probably the greater number would have 
291 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 

chosen such a spot as this in preference to any other : a 
few would have fancied a constraint in its trim neatness, 
and would have preferred the wild hill-top of the neigh- 
bouring site, with Nature in her most negligent attire. 

The light in the churchyard he next discovered to 
have its source in a point very near the ground, and 
Stephen imagined it might come from a lantern in the 
interior of a partly-dug grave. But a nearer approach 
showed him that its position was immediately under the 
wall of the aisle, and within the mouth of an archway. 
He could now hear voices, and the truth of the whole 
matter began to dawn upon him. Walking on towards 
the opening, Smith discerned on his left hand a heap of 
earth, and before him a flight of stone steps which the 
removed earth had uncovered, leading down under the 
edifice. It was the entrance to a large family vault, 
extending under the north aisle. 

Stephen had never before seen it open, and descend- 
ing one or two steps stooped to look under the arch. 
The vault appeared to be crowded with coffins, with the 
exception of an open central space, which had been neces- 
sarily kept free for ingress and access to the sides, round 
three of which the coffins were stacked in stone bins 
or niches. 

The place was well lighted with candles stuck in 
slips of wood that were fastened to the wall. On making 
the descent of another step the living inhabitants of 
the vault were recognizable. They were his father the 
master-mason, an under-mason, Martin Cannister, and 
two or three young and old labouring-men. Crowbars 
and workmen’s hammers were scattered about. The 
whole company, sitting round on coffins wdiich had 
been removed from their places, apparently for some 
alteration or enlargement of the vault, were eating 
bread and cheese, and drinking ale from a cup with 
two handles, passed round from each to each. 

‘ Who is dead ? ’ Stephen inquired, stepping down. 

292 


XXVI 


*To that last nothing under earth.' 

All eyes were turned to the entrance as Stephen 
spoke, and the ancient-mannered conclave scrutinized 
him inquiringly. 

4 Why, ’tis our Stephen ! ’ said his father, rising from 
his seat ; and, still retaining the frothy mug in his left 
hand, he swung forward his right for a grasp. ‘ Your 
mother is expecting ye — thought you would have come 
afore dark. But you’ll wait and go home with me ? 1 

have all but done for the day, and was going directly.’ 

4 Yes, ’tis Master Stephy, sure enough. Glad to see 
you so soon again, Master Smith,’ said Martin Cannister, 
chastening the gladness expressed in his words by a 
strict neutrality of countenance, in order to harmonize 
the feeling as much as possible with the solemnity of a 
family vault. 

‘ The same to you, Martin ; and you, William,’ said 
Stephen, nodding around to the rest, who, having their 
mouths full of bread and cheese, were of necessity com- 
pelled to reply merely by compressing their eyes to 
friendly lines and wrinkles. 

4 And who is dead ? ’ Stephen repeated. 

1 Lady Luxellian, poor gentlewoman, as we all shall, 
293 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


said the under-mason. * Ay, and we be going to enlarge 
the vault to make room for her.’ 

‘ When did she die ? ’ 

‘ Early this morning/ his father replied, with an 
appearance of recurring to a chronic thought. * Yes, 
this morning. Martin hev been tolling ever since, 
almost. There, ’twas expected. She was very limber.’ 

‘Ay, poor soul, this morning/ resumed the under- 
mason, a marvellously old man, whose skin seemed so 
much too large for his body that it would not stay in 
position. ‘ She must know by this time whether she’s 
to go up or down, poor woman.’ 

‘ What was her age ? ’ 

‘ Not more than seven or eight and twenty by candle- 
light. But, Lord! by day ’a was forty if ’a were an 
hour.’ 

‘Ay, night-time or day-time makes a difference of 
twenty years to rich feymels/ observed Martin. 

‘ She was one and thirty really/ said John Smith. 

‘ I had it from them that know.’ 

‘ Not more than that ! ’ 

‘ ’A looked very bad, poor lady. In faith, ye might 
say she was dead for years afore ’a would own it.’ 

* As my old father used to say, “ dead, but wouldn’t 
drop down.” ’ 

‘ I seed her, poor soul/ said a labourer from behind 
some removed coffins, ‘ only but last Valentine’ s-day of 
all the world. ’A was arm in crook wi’ my lord. I 
says to myself, “ You be ticketed Churchyard, my noble 
lady, although you don’t dream on’t.” ’ 

‘ I suppose my lord will write to all the other lords 
anointed in the nation, to let ’em know that she that 
was is now no more ? ’ 

‘ ’Tis done and past. I see a bundle of letters go 
off an hour after the death. Sich wonderful black rims 
as they letters had — half-an-inch wide, at the very least.’ 

* Too much/ observed Martin. ‘ In short, ’tis out 

294 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


of the question that a human being can be so mournful 
as black edges half-an-inch wide. I’m sure people don’t 
feel more than a very narrow border when they feels 
most of all.’ 

* And there are two little girls, are there not ? ’ said 
Stephen. 

‘ Nice clane little faces ! — left motherless now.’ 

‘ They used to come to Parson Swancourt’s to play 
with Miss Elfride when I were there,’ said William 
Worm. * Ah, they did so’s ! ’ The latter sentence was 
introduced to add the necessary melancholy to a remark 
which, intrinsically, could hardly be made to possess 
enough for the occasion. * Yes,’ continued Worm, 
‘they’d run upstairs, they’d run down; flitting about 
with her everywhere. Very fond of her, they were. 
Ah, well ! ’ 

‘ Fonder than ever they were of their mother, so ’tis 
said here and there,’ added a labourer. 

‘ Well, you see, ’tis natural. Lady Luxellian stood 
aloof from ’em so — was so drowsy-like, that they couldn’t 
love her in the jolly-companion way children want to 
like folks. Only last winter I seed Miss Elfride talking 
to my lady and the two children, and Miss Elfride 
wiped their noses for em’ so careful — my lady never 
once seeing that it wanted doing; and, naturally, 
children take to people that’s their best friend.’ 

‘ Be as ’twill, the woman is dead and gone, and we 
must make a place for her,’ said John. ‘ Come, lads, 
drink up your ale, and we’ll just rid this corner, so as to 
have all clear for beginning at the wall, as soon as ’tis 
light to-morrow.’ 

Stephen then asked where Lady Luxellian was to lie. 

4 Here,’ said his father. * We are going to set back 
this wall and make a recess ; and ’tis enough for us to 
do before the funeral. When my lord’s mother died, 
she said, “John, the place must be enlarged before 
another can be put in.” But ’a never expected ’twould 
295 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


be wanted so soon. Better move Lord George first, I 
suppose, Simeon ?’ 

He pointed with his foot to a heavy coffin, covered 
with what had originally been red velvet, the colour of 
which could only just be distinguished now. 

‘Just as ye think best, Master John,’ replied the 
shrivelled mason. ‘ Ah, poor Lord George ! ’ he con- 
tinued, looking contemplatively at the huge coffin ; ‘ he 
and I were as bitter enemies once as any could be 
when one is a lord and t’other only a mortal man. 
Poor fellow ! He’d clap his hand upon my shoulder 
and cuss me as familiar and neighbourly as if he’d 
been a common chap. Ay, ’a cussed me up hill and 
’a cussed me down ; and then ’a would rave out again, 
and the goold clamps of his fine new teeth would glisten 
in the sun like fetters of brass, while I, being a small 
man and poor, was fain to say nothing at all. Such a 
strappen fine gentleman as he was too ! Yes, I rather 
liked en sometimes. But once now and then, when I 
looked at his towering height, I’d think in my inside, 
“ What a weight you’ll be, my lord, for our arms to 
lower under the aisle of Endelstow Church some 
day ! ” ’ 

‘ And was he ? ’ inquired a young labourer. 

‘ He was. He was five hundredweight if ’a were a 
pound. What with his lead, and his oak, and his 
handles, and his one thing and t’other ’ — here the 
ancient man slapped his hand upon the cover with a 
force that caused a rattle among the bones inside — ‘ he 
half broke my back when I took his feet to lower en 
down the steps there. “Ah/’ saith I to John there — 
didn’t I, John? — “that ever one man’s glory should be 
such a weight upon another man ! ” But there, I liked 
my lord George sometimes.’ 

‘ ’Tis a strange thought/ said another, ‘ that while 
they be all here under one roof, a snug united family 
o* Luxellians, they be really scattered miles away from 
296 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


one another in the form of good sheep and wicked goats, 
isn’t it ? ’ 

‘True; ’tis a thought to look at.’ 

‘ And that one, if he’s gone upward, don’t know 
what his wife is doing no more than the man in the 
moon if she’s gone downward. And that some un- 
fortunate one in the hot place is a-hollering across to 
a lucky one up in the clouds, and quite forgetting their 
bodies be boxed close together all the time.’ 

‘Ay, ’tis a thought to look at, too, that I can say 
“ Hullo ! ” close to fiery Lord George, and ’a can’t 
hear me.’ 

‘ And that I be eating my onion close to dainty Lady 
Jane’s nose, and she can’t smell me.’ 

‘ What do ’em put all their heads one way for ? ’ 
inquired a young man. 

‘ Because ’tis churchyard law, you simple. The law 
of the living is, that a man shall be upright and down- 
right ; and the law of the dead is, that a man shall be 
east and west. Every state of society have its laws.’ 

‘ We must break the law wi’ a few of the poor souls, 
however. Come, buckle to,’ said the master-mason. 

And they set to work anew. 

The order of interment could be distinctly traced by 
observing the appearance of the coffins as they lay piled 
around. On those which had been standing there but 
a generation or two the trappings still remained. Those 
of an earlier period showed bare wood, with a few 
tattered rags dangling therefrom. Earlier still, the wood 
lay in fragments on the floor of the niche, and the coffin 
consisted of naked lead alone ; whilst in the case of the 
very oldest, even the lead was bulging and cracking in 
pieces, revealing to the curious eye a heap of dust within. 
The shields upon many were quite loose, and removable 
by the hand, their lustreless surfaces still indistinctly 
exhibiting the name and title of the deceased. 

Overhead the groins and concavities of the arches 

u 297 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


curved in all directions, dropping low towards the walls, 
where the height was no more than sufficient to enable 
a person to stand upright. 

The body of George the fourteenth baron, together 
with two or three others, all of more recent date than 
the great bulk of coffins piled there, had, for want of 
room, been placed at the end of the vault on tressels, 
and not in niches like the others. These it was neces- 
sary to remove, to form behind them the chamber in 
which they were ultimately to be deposited. Stephen, 
finding the place and proceedings in keeping with the 
sombre colours of his mind, waited there still. 

‘ Simeon, I suppose you can mind poor Lady Elfride, 
and how she ran away with the actor ? ’ said John Smith, 
after awhile. ‘ I think it fell upon the time my father 
was sexton here. Let us see — where is she ? ’ 

‘ Here somewhere,’ returned Simeon, looking round 
him. 

‘ Why, I’ve got my arms round the very gentlewoman 
at this moment.’ He lowered the end of the coffin he 
'was holding, wiped his face, and throwing a morsel of 
rotten wood upon another as an indicator, continued : 

‘ That’s her husband there. They was as fair a couple 
as you should see anywhere round about ; and a good- 
hearted pair likewise. Ay, I can mind it, though I was 
but a chiel at the time. She fell in love with this young 
man of hers, and their banns were asked in some church 
in London ; and the old lord her father actually heard 
’em asked the three times, and didn’t notice her name, 
being gabbled on wi’ a host of others. When she had 
married she told her father, and ’a fleed into a mon- 
strous rage, and said she shouldn’ hae a farthing. 
Lady Elfride said she didn’t think of wishing it ; if he’d 
forgie her ’twas all she asked, and as for a living, she 
was content to play plays with her husband. This 
frightened the old lord, and ’a gie’d ’em a house to live 
in, and a great garden, and a little field or two, and a 
298 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


carriage, and a good few guineas. Well, the poor thing 
died at her first gossiping, and her husband — who was 
as tender-hearted a man as ever eat meat, and would 
have died for her — went wild in his mind, and broke 
his heart (so ’twas said). Anyhow, they were buried 
the same day — father and mother — but the baby lived. 
Ay, my lord’s family made much of that man then, and 
put him here with his wife, and there in the corner the 
man is now. The Sunday after there was a funeral 
sermon : the text was, “ Or ever the silver cord be loosed, 
or the golden bowl be broken ; ” and when ’twas preach- 
ing the men drew their hands across their eyes several 
times, and every woman cried out loud.’ 

‘ And what became of the baby ? ’ said Stephen, who 
had frequently heard portions of the story. 

‘ She was brought up by her grandmother, and a 
pretty maid she were. And she must needs run away 
with the curate — Parson Swancourt that is now. Then 
her grandmother died, and the title and everything went 
away to another branch of the family altogether. Parson 
Swancourt wasted a good deal of his wife’s money, and 
she left him Miss Elfride. That trick of running away 
seems to be handed down in families, like craziness or 
gout. And they two women be alike as peas.’ 

‘ Which two ? ’ 

‘ Lady Elfride and young Miss that’s alive now. 
The same hair and eyes : but Miss Elfride’s mother was 
darker a good deal.’ 

‘ Life’s a strangle bubble, ye see,’ said William Worm 
musingly. ‘ For if the Lord’s anointment had de- 
scended upon women instead of men, Miss Elfride 
would be Lord Luxellian — Lady, I mane. But as 
it is, the blood is run out, and she’s nothing to the 
Luxellian family by law, whatever she may be by 
gospel.’ 

‘ I used to fancy,’ said Simeon, ‘ when I seed Miss 
Elfride hugging the little ladyships, that there was a 
299 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


likeness ; but I suppose ’twas only my dream, for years 
must have altered the old family shape.’ 

‘And now we’ll move these two, and home-along,’ 
interposed John Smith, reviving, as became a master, 
the spirit of labour, which had showed unmistakable 
signs of being nearly vanquished by the spirit of chat. 
‘ The flagon of ale we don’t want we’ll let bide here till 
to-morrow; none of the poor souls will touch it ’a 
b’lieve.’ 

So the evening’s work was concluded, and the party 
drew from the abode of the quiet dead, closing the old 
iron door, and shooting the lock loudly into the huge 
copper staple — an incongruous act of imprisonment 
towards those who had no dreams of escape. 


XXVII 


‘How should I greet thee?’ 

LOVE frequently dies of time alone — much more 
frequently of displacement. With Elfride Swancourt, a 
powerful reason why the displacement should be suc- 
cessful was that the new-comer was a greater man than 
the first. By the side of the instructive and piquant 
snubbings she received from Knight, Stephen’s general 
agreeableness seemed watery ; by the side of Knight’s 
spare love-making, Stephen’s continual outflow seemed 
lackadaisical. She had begun to sigh for somebody 
further on in manhood. Stephen was hardly enough of 
a man. 

Perhaps there was a proneness to inconstancy in 
her nature — a nature, to those who contemplate it from 
a standpoint beyond the influence of that inconstancy, 
the most exquisite of all in its plasticity and ready 
sympathies. Partly, too, Stephen’s failure to make his 
hold on her heart a permanent one was his too timid 
habit of dispraising himself beside her — a peculiarity 
which, exercised towards sensible men, stirs a kindly 
chord of attachment that a marked assertiveness would 
leave untouched, but inevitably leads the most sensible 
woman in the world to undervalue him who practises 
301 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


it. Directly domineering ceases in the man, snubbing 
begins in the woman ; the trite but no less unfortunate 
fact being that the gentler creature rarely has the 
capacity to appreciate fair treatment from her natural 
complement. The abiding perception of the position 
of Stephen’s parents had, of course, a little to do with 
Elfride’s renunciation. To such girls poverty may not 
be, as to the more worldly masses of humanity, a sin 
in itself; but it is a sin, because graceful and dainty 
manners seldom exist in such an atmosphere. Few 
women of old family can be thoroughly taught that a 
fine soul may wear a smock-frock, and an admittedly 
common man in one is but a worm in their eyes. 
John Smith’s rough hands and clothes, his wife’s 
dialect, the necessary narrowness of their ways, being 
constantly under Elfride’s notice, were not without their 
deflecting influence. 

On reaching home after the perilous adventure by 
the sea-shore, Knight had felt unwell, and retired almost 
immediately. The young lady who had so materially 
assisted him had done the same, but she reappeared, 
properly clothed, about five o’clock. She wandered 
restlessly about the house, but not on account of their 
joint narrow escape from death. The storm which had 
torn the tree had merely bowed the reed, and with the 
deliverance of Knight all deep thought of the accident 
had left her. The mutual avowal which it had been 
the means of precipitating occupied a far longer length 
of her meditations. 

Elfride’s disquiet now was on account of that miser- 
able promise to meet Stephen, which returned like a 
spectre again and again. The perception of his littleness 
beside Knight grew upon her alarmingly. She now - 
thought how sound had been her father’s advice to her 
to give him up, and was as passionately desirous of 
following it as she had hitherto been averse. Perhaps 
there is nothing more hardening to the tone of young 
302 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


minds than thus to discover how their dearest and 
strongest wishes become gradually attuned by Time the 
Cynic to the very note of some selfish policy which in 
earlier days they despised. 

The hour of appointment came, and with it a crisis ; 
and with the crisis a collapse. 

‘ God forgive me — I can’t meet Stephen ! ’ she 
exclaimed to herself. ‘ I don’t love him less, but I 
love Mr. Knight more ! ’ 

Yes : she would save herself from a man not fit for 
her — in spite of vows. She would obey her father, and 
have no more to do with Stephen Smith. Thus the 
fickle resolve showed signs of assuming the complexion 
of a virtue. 

The following days were passed without any definite 
avowal from Knight’s lips. Such solitary walks and 
scenes as that witnessed by Smith in the summer-house 
were frequent, but he courted her so intangibly that to 
any but such a delicate perception as Elfride’s it would 
have appeared no courtship at all. The time now really 
began to be sweet with her. She dismissed the sense 
of sin in her past actions, and was automatic in the 
intoxication of the moment. The fact that Knight 
made no actual declaration was no drawback. Knowing 
since the betrayal of his sentiments that love for her 
really existed, she preferred it for the present in its 
form of essence, and was willing to avoid for awhile the 
grosser medium of words. Their feelings having been 
forced to a rather premature demonstration, a reaction 
was indulged in by both. 

But no sooner had she got rid of her troubled 
conscience on the matter of faithlessness than a new 
anxiety confronted her. It was lest Knight should 
accidentally meet Stephen in the parish, and that herself 
should be the subject of discourse. 

Elfride, learning Knight more thoroughly, perceived 
that, far from having a notion of Stephen’s precedence, 
3°3 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


he had no idea that she had ever been wooed before 
by anybody. On ordinary occasions she had a tongue 
so frank as to show her whole mind, and a mind so 
straightforward as to reveal her heart to its innermost 
shrine. But the time for a change had come. She 
never alluded to even a knowledge of Knight’s friend. 
When women are secret they are secret indeed ; and 
more often than not they only begin to be secret with 
the advent of a second lover. 

The elopement was now a spectre worse than the 
first, and, like the Spirit in Glenfinlas, it waxed taller 
with every attempt to lay it. Her natural honesty in- 
vited her to confide in Knight, and trust to his gener- 
osity for forgiveness : she knew also that as mere policy 
it would be better to tell him early if he was to be told 
at all. The longer her concealment the more difficult 
would be the revelation. But she put it off. The 
intense fear which accompanies intense love in young 
women was too strong to allow the exercise of a moral 
quality antagonistic to itself : 

» 

* Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear ; 

Where little fears grow great, great love grows there.’ 

The match was looked upon as made by her father 
and mother. The vicar remembered her promise to 
reveal the jneaning of the telegram she had received, 
and two days after the scene in the summer-house, 
asked her pointedly. She was frank with him now. 

‘ 1 had been corresponding with Stephen Smith ever 
since he left England, till lately,’ she calmly said. 

‘ What ! ’ cried the vicar aghast ; * under the eyes of 
Mr. Knight, too ? ’ 

4 No; when I found I cared most for Mr. Knight, 
I obeyed you.’ 

‘You were very kind, I’m sure. When did you 
begin to like Mr. Knight ? ’ 

‘ I don’t see that that is a pertinent question, papa ; 

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A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


the telegram was from the shipping agent, and was not 
sent at my request. It announced the arrival of the 
vessel bringing him home.’ 

* Home ! What, is he here ? ’ 

* Yes ; in the village, I believe/ 

* Has he tried to see you ? ’ 

c Only by fair means. But don’t, papa, question me 
so ! It is torture.’ 

‘ I will only say one word more,’ he replied. * Have 
you met him ? ’ 

‘ I have not. I can assure you that at the present 
moment there is no more of an understanding between 
me and the young man you so much disliked than 
between him and you. You told me to forget him; 
and I have forgotten him.’ 

* Oh, well; though you did not obey mein the begin- 
ning, you are a good girl, Elfride, in obeying me at last.’ 

‘ Don’t call me “ good,” papa,’ she said bitterly ; 
* you don’t know — and the less said about some things 
the better. Remember, Mr. Knight knows nothing 
about the other. Oh, how wrong it all is ! I don’t 
know what I am coming to.’ 

* As matters stand, I should be inclined to tell him ; 
or, at any rate, I should not alarm myself about his 
knowing. He found out the other day that this was 
the parish young Smith’s father lives in — what puts you 
in such a flurry ? ’ 

‘ I can’t say ; but promise — pray don’t let him 
know ! It would be my ruin ! ’ 

‘ Pooh, child. Knight is a good fellow and a clever 
man ; but at the same time it does not escape my per- 
ceptions that he is no great catch for you. Men of 
his turn of mind are nothing so wonderful in the way 
of husbands. If you had chosen to wait, you might 
have mated with a much wealthier man. But remember, 
I have not a word to say against your having him, if 
you like him. Charlotte is delighted, as you know.’ 

3°5 U 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


* Well, papa/ she said, smiling hopefully through a 
sigh, ‘ it is nice to feel that in giving way to — to caring 
for him, I have pleased my family. But I am not good ; 
oh no, I am very far from that ! ’ 

* None of us are good, I am sorry to say/ said her 
father blandly; ‘but girls have a chartered right to 
change their minds, you know. It has been recognized 
by poets from time immemorial. Catullus says, “ Mulier 
cupido quod dicit amanti, in vento — ’ What a memory 
mine is ! However, the passage is, that a woman’s 
words to a lover are as a matter of course written only 
on wind and water. Now don’t be troubled about that, 
Elfride.’ 

* Ah, you don’t know ! *i 

They had been standing on the lawn, and Knight 
was now seen lingering some way down a winding walk. 
When Elfride met him, it was with a much greater 
lightness of heart; things were more straightforward 
now. The responsibility of her fickleness seemed partly 
shifted from her own shoulders to her father’s. Still, 
there were shadows. 

‘Ah, could he have known how far I went with 
Stephen, and yet have said the same, how much happier 
I should be ! ’ That was her prevailing thought. 

In the afternoon the lovers went out together on 
horseback for an hour or two ; and though not wishing 
to be observed, by reason of the late death of Lady 
LuxelUan, whose funeral had taken place very privately 
on the previous day, they yet found it necessary to pass 
East Endelstow Church. 

The steps to the vault, as has been stated, were on 
the outside of the building, immediately under the aisle 
wall. Being on horseback, both Knight and Elfride 
could overlook the shrubs which screened the church- 
yard. 

* Look, the vault seems still to be open/ said Knight 

* Yes. it is open/ she answered. 

306 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 

‘ Who is that man close by it ? The mason, I 
suppose ? ’ 

‘Yes.’ 

‘ I wonder if it is John Smith, Stephen’s father?* 

‘ I believe it is,’ said Elfride, with apprehension. 

‘ Ah, and can it be ? I should like to inquire how 
his son, my truant protdgd, is going on. And from 
your father’s description of the vault, the interior must 
be interesting. Suppose we go in.’ 

‘ Had we better, do you think ? May not Lord 
Luxellian be there ? ’ 

‘ It is not at all likely.’ 

Elfride then assented, since she could do nothing 
else. Her heart, which at first had quailed in con- 
sternation, recovered itself when she considered the 
character of John Smith. A quiet unassuming man, he 
would be sure to act towards her as before those love 
passages with his son, which might have given a more 
pretentious mechanic airs. So without much alarm she 
took Knight’s arm after dismounting, and went with 
him between and over the graves. The master-mason 
recognized her as she approached, and, as usual, lifted 
his hat respectfully. 

‘ I know you to be Mr. Smith, my former friend 
Stephen’s father,’ said Knight, directly he had scanned 
the embrowned and ruddy features of John. 

‘Yes, sir, I b’lieve I be.’ 

‘How is your son now? I have only once heard 
from him since he went to India. I daresay you have 
heard him speak of me — Mr. Knight, who became 
acquainted with him some years ago in Exonbury.’ 

‘Ay, that I have. Stephen is very well, thank you, 
sir, and he’s in England; in fact, he’s at home. In 
short, sir, he’s down in the vault there, a-looking at the 
departed coffins.’ 

Elfride’s heart fluttered like a butterfly. 

Knight looked amazed. ‘Well, that is extraordi 
307 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


nary.’ he murmured. ‘Did he know I was in the 
parish ? ’ 

‘ I really can’t say, sir/ said John, wishing him- 
self out of the entanglement he rather suspected than 
thoroughly understood. 

‘Would it be considered an intrusion by the family 
if we went into the vault ? ’ 

‘ Oh, bless ye, no, sir ; scores of folk have been 
stepping down. ’Tis left open a-purpose.’ 

‘ We will go down, Elfride.’ 

‘ I am afraid the air is close/ she said appealingly. 

* Oh no, ma’am/ said John. * We white-limed the 
walls and arches the day ’twas opened, as we always do, 
and again on the morning of the funeral; the place is 
as sweet as a granary.' 

‘ Then I should like you to accompany me, Elfie ; 
having originally sprung from the family too.’ 

c I don’t like going where death is so emphatically 
present. I’ll stay by the horses whilst you go in ; they 
may get loose.’ 

‘ What nonsense ! I had no idea your sentiments 
were so flimsily formed as to be perturbed by a few 
remnants of mortality; but stay out, if you are so 
afraid, by all means.’ 

‘ Oh no, I am not afraid ; don’t say that.* 

She held miserably to his arm, thinking that, perhaps, 
the revelation might as well come at once as ten minutes 
later, for Stephen would be sure to accompany his friend 
to his horse. 

At first, the gloom of the vault, which was lighted 
only by a couple of candles, was too great to admit 
of their seeing anything distinctly ; but with a further 
advance Knight discerned, in front of the black masses 
lining the walls, a young man standing, and writing 
in a pocket-book. 

Knight said one word : ‘ Stephen ! ’ 

Stephen Smith, not being in such absolute ignorance 
308 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


of Knight’s whereabouts as Knight had been of Smith’s, 
instantly recognized his friend, and knew by rote the 
outlines of the fair woman standing behind him. 

Stephen came forward and shook him by the hand, 
without speaking. 

‘ Why have you not written, my boy ? ’ said Knight, 
without in any way signifying Elfride’s presence to 
Stephen. To the essayist, Smith was still the country 
lad whom he had patronized and tended ; one to whom 
the formal presentation of a lady betrothed to himself 
would have seemed incongruous and absurd. 

‘ Why haven’t you written to me ? ’ said Stephen. 

‘ Ah, yes. Why haven’t I ? why haven’t we ? 
That’s always the query which we cannot clearly 
answer without an unsatisfactory sense of our inade- 
quacies. However, I have not forgotten you, Smith. 
And now we have met; and we must meet again, 
and have a longer chat than this can conveniently 
be. I must know all you have been doing. That 
you have thriven, I know, and you must teach me 
the way.’ 

Elfride stood in the background. Stephen had read 
the position at a glance, and immediately guessed that 
she had never mentioned his name to Knight. His 
tact in avoiding catastrophes was the chief quality 
which made him intellectually respectable, in which 
quality he far transcended Knight; and he decided 
that a tranquil issue out of the encounter, without any 
harrowing of the feelings of either Knight or Elfride, 
was to be attempted if possible. His old sense of 
indebtedness to Knight had never wholly forsaken 
him ; his love for Elfride was generous now. 

As far as he dared look at her movements he saw 
that her bearing towards him would be dictated by his 
own towards her ; and if he acted as a stranger she 
would do likewise as a means of deliverance. Circum- 
stances favouring this course, it was desirable also to 
309 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


be rather reserved towards Knight, to shorten the 
meeting as much as possible. 

* I am afraid that my time is almost too short to 
allow even of such a pleasure,’ he said. ‘ I leave here 
to-morrow. And until I start for the Continent and 
India, which will be in a fortnight, I shall have hardly 
a moment to spare.’ 

Knight’s disappointment and dissatisfied looks at 
this reply sent a pang through Stephen as great as any 
he had felt at the sight of Elfride. The words about 
shortness of time were literally true, but their tone was 
far from being so. He would have been gratified to 
talk with Knight as in past times, and saw as a dead 
lose to himself that, to save the woman who cared 
nothing for him, he was deliberately throwing away his 
friend. 

‘ Oh, I am sorry to hear that,’ said Knight, in a 
changed tone. « But of course, if you have weighty 
concerns to attepd to, they must not be neglected. 
And if this is to be our first and last meeting, let 
me say that I wish you success with all my heart ! ’ 
Knight’s warmth revived towards the end; the solemn 
impressions he was beginning to receive from the scene 
around them abstracting from his heart as a puerility 
any momentary vexation at words. ‘It is a strange 
place for us to meet in,’ he continued, looking round 
the vault. 

Stephen briefly assented, and there was a silence. 
The blackened coffins were now revealed more clearly 
than at first, the whitened walls and arches throwing 
them forward in strong relief. It was a scene which 
was remembered by all three as an indelible mark in 
their history. Knight, with an abstracted face, was 
standing between his companions, though a little in 
advance of them, Elfride being on his right hand, and 
Stephen Smith on his left. The white daylight on his 
right side gleamed faintly in, and was toned to a blue- 

310 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


ness by contrast with the yellow rays from the candle 
against the wall. Elfride, timidly shrinking back, and 
nearest the entrance, received most of the light there- 
from, whilst Stephen was entirely in candlelight, and to 
him the spot of outer sky visible above the steps was as 
a steely blue patch, and nothing more. 

‘ I have been here two or three times since it was 
opened/ said Stephen. ‘ My father was engaged in 
the work, you know.’ 

‘Yes. What are you doing ?’ Knight inquired, 
looking at the note-book and pencil Stephen held in 
his hand. 

‘ I have been sketching a few details in the church, 
and since then I have been copying the names from 
some of the coffins here. Before I left England I used 
to do a good deal of this sort of thing.’ 

‘Yes; of course. Ah, that’s poor Lady Luxellian, 
I suppose.’ Knight pointed to a coffin of light satin- 
wood, which stood on the stone sleepers in the new 
niche. ‘ And the remainder of the family are on this 
side. Who are those two, so snug and close together ? ’ 

Stephen’s voice altered slightly as he replied : ‘ That’s 
Lady Elfride Kingsmore — born Luxellian, and that is 
Arthur, her husband. I have heard my father say that 
they — he — ran away with her, and married her against 
the wish of her parents.’ 

‘Then I imagine this to be where you got your 
Christian name, Miss Swancourt?’ said Knight, turn- 
ing to her. ‘ I think you told me it was three or four 
generations ago that your family branched off from the 
Luxellians ? ’ 

* She was my grandmother,’ said Elfride, vainly en- 
deavouring to moisten her dry lips before she spoke. 
Elfride had then the conscience-stricken look of Guido’s 
Magdalen, rendered upon a more childlike form. She 
kept her face partially away from Knight and Stephen, 
and set her eyes upon the sky visible outside, as if her 
3 11 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


salvation depended upon quickly reaching it. Her left 
hand rested lightly within Knight’s arm, half withdrawn, 
from a sense of shame at claiming him before her old 
lover, yet unwilling to renounce him ; so that her glove 
merely touched his sleeve. ‘ “ Can one be pardoned, and 
retain the offence ? ” ’ quoted Elfride’s heart then. 

Conversation seemed to have no self-sustaining 
power, and went on in the shape of disjointed remarks. 
‘ One’s mind gets thronged with thoughts while stand- 
ing so solemnly here,’ Knight said, in a measured quiet 
voice. * How much has been said on death from time 
to time ! how much we ourselves can think upon it ! 
We may fancy each of these who lie here saying : 

* For Thou, to make my fall more great, 

Didst lift me up on high.’ 

What comes next, Elfride? It is the Hundred-and- 
second Psalm I am thinking of.’ 

‘ Yes, I know it,’ she murmured, and went on in a 
still lower voice, seemingly afraid for any words from 
the emotional side of her nature to reach Stephen : 

* “ My days, just hastening to their end, 

Are like an evening shade ; 

My beauty doth, like wither’d grass, 

With waning lustre fade.” ’ 

‘Well,’ said Knight musingly, ‘let us leave them. 
Such occasions as these seem to compel us to roam 
outside ourselves, far away from the fragile frame we live 
in, and to expand till our perception grows so vast that 
our physical reality bears no sort of proportion to it. 
We look back upon the weak and minute stem on which 
this luxuriant growth depends, and ask, Can it be pos- 
sible that such a capacity has a foundation so small? 
Must I again return to my daily walk in that narrow 
cell, a human body, where worldly thoughts can torture 
me ? Do we not ? ’ 


312 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


‘ Yes/ said Stephen and Elfride. 

‘ One has a sense of wrong, too, that such an ap- 
preciative breadth as a sentient being possesses should 
be committed to the frail casket of a body. What 
weakens one’s intentions regarding the future like the 
thought of this ? . . . . However, let us tune ourselves 
to a more cheerful chord, for there’s a great deal to be 
done yet by us all.’ 

As Knight meditatively addressed his juniors thus, 
unconscious of the deception practised, for different 
reasons, by the severed hearts at his side, and of the 
scenes that had in earlier days united them, each one 
felt that he and she did not gain by contrast with their 
musing mentor. Physically not so handsome as either 
the youthful architect or the vicar’s daughter, the thor- 
oughness and integrity of Knight illuminated his features 
with a dignity not even incipient in the other two. It is 
difficult to frame rules which shall apply to both sexes, 
and Elfride, an undeveloped girl, must, perhaps, hardly 
be laden with the moral responsibilities which attach to 
a man in like circumstances. The charm of woman, 
too, lies partly in her subtleness in matters of love. But 
if honesty is a virtue in itself, Elfride, having none of it 
now, seemed, being for being, scarcely good enough for 
Knight. Stephen, though deceptive for no unworthy 
purpose, was deceptive after all ; and whatever good re- 
sults grace such strategy if it succeed, it seldom draws 
admiration, especially when it fails. 

On an ordinary occasion, had Knight been even quite 
alone with Stephen, he would hardly have alluded to his 
possible relationship to Elfride. But moved by attendant 
circumstances Knight was impelled to be confiding. 

1 Stephen,’ he said, ‘ this lady is Miss Swancourt. I 
am staying at her father’s house, as you probably know.’ 
He stepped a few paces nearer to Smith, and said in a 
lower tone : ‘ I may as well tell you that we are engaged 
to be married.’ 


3i3 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


Low as the words had been spoken, Elfride had 
heard them, and awaited Stephen’s reply in breathless 
silence, if that could be called silence where Elfride’s 
dress, at each throb of her heart, shook and indicated 
it like a pulse-glass, rustling also against the wall in 
reply to the same throbbing. The ray of daylight which 
reached her face lent it a blue pallor in comparison with 
those of the other two. 

‘ I congratulate you,’ Stephen whispered ; and said 
aloud, ‘ I know Miss Swancourt — a little. You must 
remember that my father is a parishioner of Mr. Swan- 
court’s.’ 

* I thought you might possibly not have lived at 
home since they have been here.’ 

* I have never lived at home, certainly, since that 
time.’ 

‘ I have seen Mr. Smith,’ faltered Elfride. 

‘ Well, there is no excuse for me. As strangers to 
each other I ought, I suppose, to have introduced you : 
as acquaintances, I should not have stood so persis- 
tently between you. But the fact is, Smith, you seem a 
boy to me, even now.’ 

Stephen appeared to have a more than previous con- 
sciousness of the intense cruelty of his fate at the 
present moment. He could not repress the words, 
uttered with a dim bitterness : 

‘ You should have said that I seemed still the rural 
mechanic’s son I am, and hence an unfit subject for the 
ceremony of introductions.’ 

1 Oh, no, no ! I won’t have that.’ Knight endea- 
voured to give his reply a laughing tone in Elfride’s 
ears, and an earnestness in Stephen’s : in both which 
efforts he signally failed, and produced a forced speech 
pleasant to neither. ‘ Well, let us go into the open air 
again; Miss Swancourt, you are particularly silent. 
You mustn’t mind Smith. I have known him for years, 
as I have told you.’ 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


* Yes, you have,’ she said. 

* To think she has never mentioned her knowledge of 
me ! ’ Smith murmured, and thought with some remorse 
how much her conduct resembled his own on his first 
arrival at her house as a stranger to the place. 

They ascended to the daylight, Knight taking no 
further notice of Elfride’s manner, which, as usual, he 
attributed to the natural shyness of a young woman at 
being discovered walking with him on terms which left 
not much doubt of their meaning. Elfride stepped a 
little in advance, and passed through the churchyard. 

‘You are changed very considerably, Smith,’ said 
Knight, ‘ and I suppose it is no more than was to be 
expected. However, don’t imagine that I shall feel 
any the less interest in you and your fortunes whenever 
you care to confide them to me. I have not forgotten 
the attachment you spoke of as your reason for going 
away to India. A London young lady, was it not ? I 
hope all is prosperous ? ’ 

‘ No : the match is broken off.’ 

It being always difficult to know whether to express 
sorrow or gladness under such circumstances — all de- 
pending upon the character of the match — Knight 
took shelter in the safe words : ‘ I trust it was for the 
best.’ 

‘ I hope it was. But I beg that you will not press 
me further : no, you have not pressed me — I don’t 
mean that — but I would rather not speak upon the 
subject.’ 

Stephen’s words were hurried. 

Knight said no more, and they followed in the foot- 
steps of Elfride, who still kept some paces in advance, 
and had not heard Knight’s unconscious allusion to 
her. Stephen bade him adieu at the churchyard-gate 
without going outside, and watched whilst he and his 
sweetheart mounted their horses. 

‘Good heavens, Elfride,’ Knight exclaimed, ‘how 
3i5 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


pale you are ! I suppose I ought not to have taken 
you into that vault. What is the matter ? ’ 

1 Nothing/ said Elfride faintly. ‘ I shall be myself 
in a moment. All was so strange and unexpected down 
there, that it made me unwell.’ 

‘ I thought you said very little. Shall I get some 
water ? ’ 

‘ No, no.’ 

* Do you think it is safe for you to mount ? ’ 

‘ Quite — indeed it is,’ she said, with a look of appeal. 

* Now then — up she goes ! ’ whispered Knight, and 
lifted her tenderly into the saddle. 

Her old lover still looked on at the performance as 
he leant over the gate a dozen yards off. Once in the 
saddle, and having a firm grip of the reins, she turned 
her head as if by a resistless fascination, and for the 
first time since that memorable parting on the moor 
outside St. Launce’s after the passionate attempt at 
marriage with him, Elfride looked in the face of the 
young man she first had loved. He was the youth who 
had called her his inseparable wife many a time, and 
whom she had even addressed as her husband. Their 
eyes met. Measurement of life should be proportioned 
rather to the intensity of the experience than to its 
actual length. Their glance, but a moment chrono- 
logically, was a season in their history. To Elfride the 
intense agony of reproach in Stephen’s eye was a nail 
piercing her heart with a deadliness no words can 
describe. With a spasmodic effort she withdrew hef 
eyes, urged on the horse, and in the chaos of perturbed 
memories was oblivious of any presence beside her. 
The deed of deception was complete. 

Gaining a knoll on which the park transformed itself 
into wood and copse, Knight came still closer to her 
side, and said, ‘ Are you better now, dearest ? ’ 

* Oh yes.’ She pressed a hand to her eyes, as if to 
blot out the image of Stephen. A vivid scarlet spot 

316 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


now shone with preternatural brightness in the centre 
of each cheek, leaving the remainder of her face lily- 
white as before. 

‘ Elfride,’ said Knight, rather in his old tone of 
mentor, ‘you know I don’t for a moment chide you, 
but is there not a great deal of unwomanly weakness 
in your allowing yourself to be so overwhelmed by the 
sight of what, after all, is no novelty? Every woman 
worthy of the name should, I think, be able to look 
upon death with something like composure. Surely 
you think so too ? * 

‘ Yes ; I own it.* 

His obtuseness to the cause of her indisposition, 
by evidencing his entire freedom from the suspicion 
of anything behind the scenes, showed how incapable 
Knight was of deception himself, rather than any in- 
herent dulness in him regarding human nature. This, 
clearly perceived by Elfride, added poignancy to her 
self-reproach, and she idolized him the more because 
of their difference. Even the recent sight of Stephen’s 
face and the sound of his voice, which for a moment 
had stirred a chord or two of ancient kindness, were 
unable to keep down the adoration re-existent now that 
he was again out of view. 

She had replied to Knight’s question hastily, and 
immediately went on to speak of indifferent subjects. 
After they had reached home she was apart from him 
till dinner-time. When dinner was over, and they were 
watching the dusk in the drawing-room, Knight stepped 
out upon the terrace. Elfride went after him very 
decisively, on the spur of a virtuous intention. 

‘ Mr. Knight, I want to tell you something,’ she said, 
with quiet firmness. 

* And what is it about ? ’ gaily returned her lover. 
1 Happiness, I hope. Do not let anything keep you so 
sad as you seem to have been to-day.’ 

‘ I cannot mention the matter until I tell you the 
317 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


whole substance of it,’ she said. ‘ And that I will do 
to-morrow. I have been reminded of it to-day. It is 
about something I once did, and don’t think I ought to 
have done.’ 

This, it must be said, was rather a mild way of 
referring to a frantic passion and flight, which, much 
or little in itself, only accident had saved from being a 
scandal in the public eye. 

Knight thought the matter some trifle, and said 
pleasantly : 

‘Then I am not to hear the dreadful confession 
now? ’ 

* No, not now. I did not mean to-night,’ Elfride 
responded, with a slight decline in the firmness of her 
voice. ‘ It is not light as you think it — it troubles me 
a great deal.’ Fearing now the effect of her own 
earnestness, she added forcedly, ‘ Though, perhaps, you 
may think it light after all.’ 

‘ But you have not said when it is to be ? ’ 

‘ To-morrow morning. Name a time, will you, and 
bind me to it ? I want you to fix an hour, because I 
am weak, and may otherwise try to get out of it.’ She 
added a little artificial laugh, which showed how timorous 
her resolution was still. 

‘ Well, say after breakfast — at eleven o’clock.’ 

‘Yes, eleven o’clock. I promise you. Bind me 
strictly to my word.’ 


XXVIII 


'I lull a fancy, trouble-tost.’ 

Miss SWANCOURT, it is eleven o’clock.’ 

She was looking out of her dressing-room window on 
the first floor, and Knight was regarding her from the 
terrace balustrade, upon which he had been idly sitting 
for some time — dividing the glances of his eye between 
the pages of a book in his hand, the brilliant hues of the 
geraniums and calceolarias, and the open window above- 
mentioned. 

‘ Yes, it is, I know. I am coming.’ 

He drew closer, and under the window. 

‘ How are you this morning, Elfride ? You look no 
better for your long night’s rest.’ 

She appeared at the door shortly after, took his 
offered arm, and together they walked slowly down the 
gravel path leading to the river and away under the trees. 

Her resolution, sustained during the last fifteen 
hours, had been to tell the whole truth, and now the 
moment had come. 

Step by step they advanced, and still she did not 
speak. They were nearly at the end of the walk, when 
Knight broke the silence. 

‘ Well, what is the confession, Elfride ? ’ 

3i9 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


She paused a moment, drew a long breath; and 
this is what she said : 

‘ I told you one day — or rather I gave you to under- 
stand — what was not true. I fancy you thought me to 
mean I was nineteen my next birthday, but it was my 
last I was nineteen/ 

The moment had been too much for her. Now 
that the crisis had come, no qualms of conscience, no 
love of honesty, no yearning to make a confidence and 
obtain forgiveness with a kiss, could string Elfride up to 
the venture. Her dread lest he should be unforgiving 
was heightened by the thought of yesterday’s artifice, 
which might possibly add disgust to his disappointment. 
The certainty of one more day’s affection, which she 
gained by silence, outvalued the hope of a perpetuity 
combined with the risk of all. 

The trepidation caused by these thoughts on what 
she had intended to say shook so naturally the words 
she did say, that Knight never for a moment suspected 
them to be a last moment’s substitution. He smiled 
and pressed her hand warmly. 

‘ My dear Elfie — yes, you are now — no protestation — 
what a winning little woman you are, to be so absurdly 
scrupulous about a mere iota! Really, I never once 
have thought whether your nineteenth year was the last 
or the present. And, by George, well I may not ; for 
it would never do for a staid fogey a dozen years older 
to stand upon such a trifle as that.’ 

‘ Don’t praise me — don’t praise me ! Though I 
prize it from your lips, I don’t deserve it now.’ 

But Knight, being in an exceptionally genial mood, 
merely saw this distressful exclamation as modesty. 
1 Well,’ he added, after a minute, ‘ I like you all the 
better, you know, for such moral precision, although I 
called it absurd.’ He went on with tender earnestness : 
* For, Elfride, there is one thing I do love to see in a 
woman — that is, a soul truthful and clear as heaven’s 
320 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


light. I could put up with anything if I had that — 
forgive nothing if I had it not. Elfride, you have such 
a soul, if ever woman had ; and having it, retain it, and 
don’t ever listen to the fashionable theories of the day 
about a woman’s privileges and natural right to practise 
wiles. Depend upon it, my dear girl, that a noble 
woman must be as honest as a noble man. I specially 
mean by honesty, fairness not only in matters of business 
and social detail, but in all the delicate dealings of love, 
to which the licence given to your sex particularly refers.’ 

Elfride looked troublously at the trees. 

‘ Now let us go on to the river, Elfie.’ 

‘ I would if I had a hat on,’ she said with a sort of 
suppressed woe. 

‘ I will get it for you,’ said Knight, very willing to 
purchase her companionship at so cheap a price. ‘ You 
sit down there a minute.’ And he turned and walked 
rapidly back to the house for the article in question. ' 

Elfride sat down upon one of the rustic benches 
which adorned this portion of the grounds, and remained 
with her eyes upon the grass. She was induced to lift 
them by hearing the brush of light and irregular foot- 
steps hard by. Passing along the path which inter- 
sected the one she was in and traversed the outer 
shrubberies, Elfride beheld the farmer’s widow, Mrs: 
Jethway. Before she noticed Elfride, she paused to 
look at the house, portions of which were visible through 
the bushes. Elfride, shrinking back, hoped the un- 
pleasant woman might go on without seeing her. But 
Mrs. Jethway, silently apostrophizing the house, with 
actions which seemed dictated by a half-overturned 
reason, had discerned the girl, and immediately came 
up and stood in front of her. 

‘ Ah, Miss Swancourt ! Why did you disturb me ? 
Mustn’t I trespass here ? ’ 

‘ You may walk here if you like, Mrs. Jethway. I 
do not disturb you.’ 


321 


x 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


* You disturb my mind, and my mind is my whole 
life ; for my boy is there still, and he is gone from my 
body.’ 

* Yes, poor young man. I was sorry when he died.’ 

‘ Do you know what he died of? ’ 

‘ Consumption.’ 

‘ Oh no, no ! ’ said the widow. ‘ That word “ con- 
sumption ” covers a good deal. He died because you 
were his own well-agreed sweetheart, and then proved 
false — and it killed him. Yes, Miss Swancourt,’ she 
said in an excited whisper, * you killed my son ! ’ 

* How can you be so wicked and foolish ! ’ replied 
Elfride, rising indignantly. But indignation was not 
natural to her, and having been so worn and harrowed 
by late events, she lost any powers of defence that mood 
might have lent her. ‘ I could not help his loving me, 
Mrs. Jethway ! ’ 

‘ That’s just what you could have helped. You 
know how it began, Miss Elfride. Yes : you said you 
liked the name of Felix better than any other name in 
the parish, and you knew it was his name, and that 
those you said it to would reporHt to him.’ 

‘ I knew it was his name — of course I did ; but I 
am sure, Mrs. Jethway, I did not intend anybody to 
tell him.’ 

‘ But you knew they would.’ 

‘ No, I didn’t.’ 

‘And then, after that, when you were riding on 
Revels-day by our house, and the lads were gathered 
there, and you wanted to dismount, when Jim Drake 
and George Upway and three or four more ran forward to 
hold your pony, and Felix stood back timid, why did you 
beckon to him, and say you would rather he held it ? ’ 

‘ O Mrs. Jethway, you do think so mistakenly ! I 
liked him best — that’s why I wanted him to do it. He 
was gentle and nice — I always thought him so — and I 
liked him.’ 


322 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


* Then why did you let him kiss you ? ’ 

‘It is a falsehood ; oh, it is, it is ! ’ said Elfride, 
weeping with desperation. ‘ He came behind me, and 
attempted to kiss me; and that was why I told him 
never to let me see him again.’ 

‘ But you did not tell your father or anybody, as you 
would have if you had looked upon it then as the insult 
you now pretend it was.’ 

‘ He begged me not to tell, and foolishly enough I 
did not. And I wish I had now. I little expected to 
be scourged with my own kindness. Pray leave me, 
Mrs. Jethway.’ The girl only expostulated now. 

‘ Well, you harshly dismissed him, and he died 
And before his body was cold, you took another to 
your heart. Then as carelessly sent him about his 
business, and took a third. And if you consider 
that nothing, Miss Swancourt,’ she continued, drawing 
closer ; ‘ it led on to what was very serious indeed. 
Have you forgotten the would-be runaway marriage? 
The journey to London, and the return the next day 
without being married, and that there’s enough disgrace 
in that to ruin a woman’s good name far less light than 
yours ? You may have : I have not. Fickleness towards 
a lover is bad, but fickleness after playing the wife is 
wantonness.’ 

‘ Oh, it’s a wicked cruel lie ! Do not say it ; oh, 
do not ! ’ 

‘ Does your new man know of it ? I think not, or 
he would be no man of yours ! As much of the story 
as was known is creeping about the neighbourhood 
even now ; but I know more than any of them, and why 
should I respect your love ? ’ 

‘ I defy you ! ’ cried Elfride tempestuously. ‘ Do 
and say all you can to ruin me; try; put your tongue 
at work ; I invite it ! I defy you as a slanderous 
woman ! Look, there he comes.’ And her voice 
trembled greatly as she saw through the leaves the 
323 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


beloved form of Knight coming from the door with her 
hat in his hand. ‘ Tell him at once ; I can bear it.’ 

‘ Not now,’ said the woman, and disappeared down 
the path. 

The excitement of her latter words had restored 
colour to Elfride’s cheeks ; and hastily wiping her eyes, 
she walked farther on, so that by the time her lover 
had overtaken her the traces of emotion had nearly 
disappeared from her face. Knight put the hat upon 
her head, took her hand, and drew it within his arm. 

It was the last day but one previous to their depar- 
ture for St. Leonards; and Knight seemed to have a 
purpose in being much in her company that day. They 
rambled along the valley. The season was that period 
in the autumn when the foliage alone of an ordinary 
plantation is rich enough in hues to exhaust the chro- 
matic combinations of an artist’s palette. Most lustrous 
of all are the beeches, graduating from bright rusty red 
at the extremity of the boughs to a bright yellow at 
their inner parts ; young oaks are still of a neutral 
green ; Scotch firs and hollies are nearly blue ; whilst 
occasional dottings of other varieties give maroons and 
purples of every tinge. 

The river — such as it was — here pursued its course 
amid flagstones as level as a pavement, but divided by 
crevices of irregular width. With the summer drought 
the torrent had narrowed till it was now but a thread of 
crystal clearness, meandering along a central channel in 
the rocky bed of the winter current. Knight scrambled 
through the bushes which at this point nearly covered 
the brook from sight, and leapt down upon the dry 
portion of the river bottom. 

‘ Elfride, I never saw such a sight ! ’ he exclaimed. 
‘ The hazels overhang the river’s course in a perfect arch, 
and the floor is beautifully paved. The place reminds 
one of the passages of a cloister. Let me help you 
down.’ 


324 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


He assisted her through the marginal underwood 
and down to the stones. They walked on together to 
a tiny cascade about a foot wide and high, and sat 
down beside it on the flags that for nine months in 
the year were submerged beneath a gushing bourne. 
From their feet trickled the attenuated thread of water 
which alone remained to tell the intent and reason of 
this leaf-covered aisle, and journeyed on in a zigzag 
line till lost in the shade. 

Knight, leaning on his elbow, after contemplating 
all this, looked critically at Elfride. 

* Does not such a luxuriant head of hair exhaust 
itself and get thin as the years go on from eighteen to 
eight-and-twenty ? ’ he asked at length. 

‘ Oh no ! ’ she said quickly, with a visible disinclina- 
tion to harbour such a thought, which came upon her 
with an unpleasantness whose force it would be difficult 
for men to understand. She added afterwards, with 
smouldering uneasiness, ‘ Do you really think that a 
great abundance of hair is more likely to get thin than 
a moderate quantity ? ’ 

‘Yes, I really do. I believe — am almost sure, in 
fact — that if statistics could be obtained on the subject, 
you would find the persons with thin hair were those 
who had a superabundance originally, and that those 
who start with a moderate quantity retain it without 
much loss.’ 

Elfride’s troubles sat upon her face as well as in her 
heart. Perhaps to a woman it is almost as dreadful to 
think of losing her beauty as of losing her reputation. 
At any rate, she looked quite as gloomy as she had 
looked at any minute that day. 

‘ You shouldn’t be so troubled about a mere personal 
adornment,’ said Knight, with some of the severity of 
tone that had been customary before she had beguiled 
him into softness. 

‘ I think it is a woman’s duty to be as beautiful as 
325 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


she can. If I were a scholar, I would give you chapter 
and verse for it from one of your own Latin authors. 
I know there is such a passage, for papa has alluded 
to it.’ 

‘ “ Munditiae, et ornatus, et cultus,” &c. — is that it ? 
A passage in Livy which is no defence at all.’ 

‘No, it is not that.’ 

‘Never mind, then; for I have a reason for not 
taking up my old cudgels against you, Elfie. Can you 
guess what the reason is ? ’ 

‘ No; but I am glad to hear it,’ she said thankfully. 
‘For it is dreadful when you talk so. For whatever 
dreadful name the weakness may deserve, I must 
candidly own that I am terrified to think my hair may 
ever get thin/ 

‘ Of course ; a sensible woman would rather lose her 
wits than her beauty.’ 

‘ I don’t care if you do say satire and judge me 
cruelly. I know my hair is beautiful; everybody 
says so.’ 

‘ Why, my dear Miss Swancourt,’ he tenderly replied, 

‘ I have not said anything against it. But you know 
what is said about handsome being and handsome 
doing.’ 

‘ Poor Miss Handsome-does cuts but a sorry figure 
beside Miss Handsome-is in every man’s eyes, your 
own not excepted, Mr. Knight, though it pleases you 
to throw off so,’ said Elfride saucily. And lowering her 
voice : ‘You ought not to have taken so much trouble 
to save me from falling over the cliff, for you don’t 
think mine a life worth much trouble evidently.’ 

‘ Perhaps you think mine was not worth yours.’ 

‘ It was worth anybody’s ! ’ 

Her hand was plashing in the little waterfall, and 
her eyes were bent the same way. 

‘ You talk about my severity with you, Elfride. You 
are unkind to me, you know.’ 

326 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


‘ How ? ’ she asked, looking up from her idle occupa- 
tion. 

‘ After my taking trouble to get jewellery to please 
you, you wouldn’t accept it.’ 

* Perhaps I would now ; perhaps I want to.’ 

* Do ! ’ said Knight. 

And the packet was withdrawn from his pocket and 
presented the third time. Elfride took it with delight. 
The obstacle was rent in twain, and the significant gift 
was hers. 

‘ I’ll take out these ugly ones at once,’ she exclaimed, 
1 and I’ll wear yours — shall I ? ’ 

‘ I should be gratified.’ 

Now, though it may seem unlikely, considering how 
far the two had gone in converse, Knight had never 
yet ventured to kiss Elfride. Far slower was he than 
Stephen Smith in matters like that. The utmost ad- 
vance he had made in such demonstrations had been 
to the degree witnessed by Stephen in the summer- 
house. So Elfride’s cheek being still forbidden fruit to 
him, he said impulsively. 

‘ Elfie, I should like to touch that seductive ear of 
yours. Those are my gifts; so let me dress you in 
them.’ 

She hesitated with a stimulating hesitatioa 

* Let me put just one in its place, then ? ’ 

Her face grew much warmer. 

‘ I don’t think it would be quite the usual or proper 
course,’ she said, suddenly turning and resuming her 
operation of plashing in the miniature cataract. 

The stillness of things was disturbed by a bird com- 
ing to the streamlet to drink. After watching him dip 
his bill, sprinkle himself, and fly into a tree, Knight 
replied, with the courteous brusqueness she so much 
liked to hear — 

‘ Elfride, now you may as well be fair. You would mind 
my doing it but little, I think ; so give me leave, do.’ 
327 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


‘ I will be fair, then/ she said confidingly, and look- 
ing him full in the face. It was a particular pleasure 
to her to be able to do a little honesty without fear. 
‘ I should not mind your doing so — I should like such 
an attention. My thought was, would it be right to 
let you ? ’ 

* Then I will ! 3 he rejoined, with that singular 
earnestness about a small matter — in the eyes of a 
ladies’ man but a momentary peg for flirtation or jest 
— which is only found in deep natures who have been 
wholly unused to toying with womankind, and which, 
from its unwontedness, is in itself a tribute the most 
precious that can be rendered, and homage the most 
exquisite to be received. 

‘ And you shall,’ she whispered, without reserve, and 
no longer mistress of the ceremonies. And then Elfride 
inclined herself towards him, thrust back her hair, and 
poised her head sideways. In doing this her arm and 
shoulder necessarily rested against his breast. 

At the touch, the sensation of both seemed to be 
concentrated at the point of contact. All the time he 
was performing the delicate manoeuvre Knight trembled 
like a young surgeon in his first operation. 

* Now the other,’ said Knight in a whisper. 

c No, no.’ 

‘ Why not ? ’ 

1 1 don’t know exactly.’ 

* You must know.’ 

‘ Your touch agitates me so. Let us go home.’ 

4 Don’t say that, Elfride. What is it, after all ? A 
mere nothing. Now turn round, dearest.’ 

She was powerless to disobey, and turned forthwith ; 
and then, without any defined intention in either’s mind, 
his face and hers drew closer together; and he sup- 
ported her there, and kissed her. 

Knight was at once the most ardent and the coolest 
man alive. When his emotions slumbered he appeared 
328 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


almost phlegmatic ; when they were moved he was no 
less than passionate. And now, without having quite 
intended an early marriage, he put the question plainly. 
It came with all the ardour which was the accumulation 
of long years behind a natural reserve. 

* Elfride, when shall we be married ? * 

The words were sweet to her ; but there was a bitter 
in the sweet. These newly-overt acts of his, which had 
culminated in this plain question, coming on the very 
day of Mrs. Jethway’s blasting reproaches, painted dis- 
tinctly her fickleness as an enormity. Loving him in 
secret had not seemed such thorough-going inconstancy 
as the same love recognized and acted upon in the face 
of threats. Her distraction was interpreted by him at her 
side as the outward signs of an unwonted experience. 

* I don’t press you for an answer now, darling,’ he said, 
seeing she was not likely to give a lucid reply. ‘ Take 
your time.’ 

Knight was as honourable a man as was ever loved 
and deluded by woman. It may be said that his blind- 
ness in love proved the point, for shrewdness in love 
usually goes with meanness in general. Once the passion 
had mastered him, the intellect had gone for naught. 
Knight, as a lover, was more single-minded and far 
simpler than his friend Stephen, who in other capa- 
cities was shallow beside him. 

Without saying more on the subject of their marriage, 
Knight held her at arm’s length, as if she had been a 
large bouquet, and looked at her with critical affection. 

1 Does your pretty gift become me ? ’ she inquired, 
with tears of excitement on the fringes of her eyes. 

‘Undoubtedly, perfectly!’ said her lover, adopting 
a lighter tone to put her at her ease. ‘ Ah, you should 
see them ; you look shinier than ever. Fancy that I 
have been able to improve you ! ’ 

‘ Am I really so nice ? I am glad for your sake. I 
wish I could see myself.’ 

r 329 


A PAIR BLUE OF EYES 

* You can’t. You must wait till we get home.’ 

‘ I shall never be able/ she said, laughing. 1 Look : 
here’s a way.’ 

‘ So there is. Well done, woman’s wit ! ’ 

( Hold me steady ! ’ 

* Oh yes.’ 

* And don’t let me fall, will you ? ’■ 

‘ By no means.’ 

Below their seat the thread of water paused to 
spread out into a smooth small pool. Knight sup- 
ported her whilst she knelt down and leant over it. 

£ I can see myself. Really, try as religiously as I 
will, I cannot help admiring my appearance in them.’ 

‘ Doubtless. How can you be so fond of finery ? 
I believe you are corrupting me into a taste for it. 
I used to hate every such thing before I knew you.’ 

‘ I like ornaments, because I want people to admire 
what you possess, and envy you, and say, “ I wish I 
was he.’” 

‘ I suppose I ought not to object after that. And 
how much longer are you going to look in there at 
yourself? ’ 

‘Until you are tired of holding me? Oh, I want 
to ask you something.’ And she turned round. ‘ Now 
tell truly, won’t you? What colour of hair do you 
like best now ? ’ 

Knight did not answer at the moment. 

‘ Say light, do ! ’ she whispered coaxingly. ‘ Don’t 
say dark, as you did that time.’ 

* Light-brown, then. Exactly the colour of my sweet- 
heart’s.’ 

‘ Really ? ’ said Elfride, enjoying as truth what she 
knew to be flattery. 

‘ Yes.’ 

* And blue eyes, too, not hazel ? Say yes, say yes ! ’ 

* One recantation is enough for to-day.’ 

* No, no.’ 


330 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


‘Very well, blue eyes/ And Knight laughed, and 
drew her close and kissed her the second time, which 
Operations he performed with the carefulness of a 
fruiterer touching a bunch of grapes so as not to 
disturb their bloom. 

Elfride objected to a second, and flung away her 
face, the movement causing a slight disarrangement of 
hat and hair. Hardly thinking what she said in the 
trepidation of the moment, she exclaimed, clapping 
her hand to her ear — 

‘ Ah, we must be careful ! I lost the other earring 
doing like this/ 

No sooner did she realise the significant words than 
a troubled look passed across her face, and she shut 
her lips as if to keep them back. 

* Doing like what ? ’ said Knight, perplexed. 

‘ Oh, sitting down out of doors/ she replied hastily. 


XXIX 


‘ Care, thou canker.' 

It is an evening at the beginning of October, and the 
mellowest of autumn sunsets irradiates London, even 
to its uttermost eastern end. Between the eye and 
the flaming West, columns of smoke stand up in the 
still air like tall trees. Everything in the shade is rich 
and misty blue. 

Mr. and Mrs. Swancourt and Elfride are looking 
at these lustrous and lurid contrasts from the window 
of a large hotel near London Bridge. The visit to 
their friends at St. Leonards is over, and they are 
staying a day or two in the metropolis on their way 
home. 

Knight spent the same interval of time in crossing 
over to Brittany by way of Jersey and St. Malo. He 
then passed through Normandy, and returned to 
London also, his arrival there having been two days 
later than that of Elfride and her parents. 

So the evening of this October day saw them all 
meeting at the above-mentioned hotel, where they had 
previously engaged apartments. During the afternoon 
Knight had been to his lodgings at Richmond to make 
a little change in the nature of his baggage ; and on 
332 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


coming up again there was never ushered by a bland 
waiter into a comfortable room a happier man than 
Knight when shown to where Elfride and her step- 
mother were sitting after a fatiguing day of shopping. 

Elfride looked none the better for her change : 
Knight was as brown as a nut. They were soon 
engaged by themselves in a corner of the room. Now 
that the precious words of promise had been spoken, 
the young girl had no idea of keeping up her price by 
the system of reserve which other more accomplished 
maidens use. Her lover was with her again, and it 
was enough : she made her heart over to him entirely. 

Dinner was soon despatched. And when a prelimi- 
nary round of conversation concerning their doings 
since the last parting had been concluded, they reverted 
to the subject of to-morrow’s journey home. 

‘ That enervating ride through the myrtle climate of 
South Devon — how I dread it to-morrow ! * Mrs. Swan- 
court was saying. ‘ I had hoped the weather would 
have been cooler by this time.’ 

‘ Did you ever go by water ? ’ said Knight. 

‘ Never — by never, I mean not since the time of 
railways.’ 

‘Then if you can afford an additional day, I pro- 
pose that we do it,’ said Knight. ‘ The Channel is like 
a lake just now. We should reach Plymouth in about 
forty hours, I think, and the boats start from just below 
the bridge here ’ (pointing over his shoulder eastward). 

‘ Hear, hear ! ’ said the vicar. 

‘ It’s an idea, certainly,’ said his wife. 

‘Of course these coasters are rather tubby,’ said 
Knight. ‘ But you wouldn’t mind that ? ’ 

‘ No : we wouldn’t mind.’ 

‘ And the saloon is a place like the fishmarket of a 
ninth-rate country town, but that wouldn’t matter ? ’ 

‘ Oh dear, no. If we had only thought of it soon 
enough, we might have had the use of Lord Luxellian’s 
333 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


yacht. But never mind, we’ll go. We shall escape the 
worrying rattle through the whole length of London to- 
morrow morning — not to mention the risk of being 
killed by excursion trains, which is not a little one at 
this time of the year, if the papers are true.’ 

Elfride, too, thought the arrangement delightful ; and 
accordingly, ten o’clock the following morning saw two 
cabs crawling round by the Mint, and between the 
preternaturally high walls of Nightingale Lane towards 
the river side. 

The first vehicle was occupied by the travellers in 
person, and the second brought up the luggage, under 
the supervision of Mrs. Snewson, Mrs. Swancourt’s maid 
— and for the last fortnight Elfride’s also ; for although 
the younger lady had never been accustomed to any 
such attendant at robing times, her stepmother forced 
her into a semblance of familiarity with one when they 
were away from home. 

Presently waggons, bales, and smells of all descrip- 
tions increased to such an extent that the advance of 
the cabs was at the slowest possible rate. At intervals 
it was necessary to halt entirely, that the heavy vehicles 
unloading in front might be moved aside, a feat which 
was not accomplished without a deal of swearing and 
noise. The vicar put his head out of the window. 

1 Surely there must be some mistake in the way,’ he 
said with great concern, drawing in his head again. 
‘ There’s not a respectable conveyance to be seen here 
except ours. I’ve heard that there are strange dens 
in this part of London, into which people have been 
entrapped and murdered — surely there is no conspiracy 
on the part of the cabman ? ’ 

1 Oh no, no. It is all right,’ said Mr. Knight, who 
was as placid as dewy eve by the side of Elfride. 

‘But what I argue from,’ said the vicar, with a 
greater emphasis of uneasiness, ‘ are plain appearances. 
This can’t be the highway from London to Plymouth 
334 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


by water, because it is no way at all to any place. We 
shall miss our steamer and our train too — that’s what 
I think.’ 

‘ Depend upon it we are right. In fact, here we are.’ 

4 Trimmer’s Wharf,’ said the cabman, opening the 
door. 

No sooner had they alighted than they perceived a 
tussle going on between the hindmost cabman and a 
crowd of light porters who had charged him in column, 
to obtain possession of the bags and boxes, Mrs. 
Snewson’s hands being seen stretched towards heaven 
in the midst of the melee. Knight advanced gallantly, 
and after a hard struggle reduced the crowd to two, 
upon whose shoulders and trucks the goods vanished 
away in the direction of the water’s edge with startling 
rapidity. 

Then more of the same tribe, who had run on ahead, 
were heard shouting to boatmen, three of whom pulled 
alongside, and two being vanquished, the luggage went 
tumbling into the remaining one. 

4 Never saw such a dreadful scene in my life — 
never ! ’ said Mr. Swancourt, floundering into the boat. 
4 Worse than Famine and Sword upon one. I thought 
such customs were confined to continental ports. Aren’t 
you astonished, Elfride ? ’ 

4 Oh no,’ said Elfride, appearing amid the dingy 
scene like a rainbow in a murky sky. 4 It is a pleasant 
novelty, I think.’ 

4 Where in the wide ocean is our steamer ? ’ the 
vicar inquired. 4 1 can see nothing but old hulks, for 
the life of me.’ 

4 Just behind that one,’ said Knight; 4 we shall soon 
be round under her.’ 

The object of their search was soon after disclosed 
to view — a great lumbering form of inky blackness, 
which looked as if it had never known the touch of a 
paint-brush for fifty years. It was lying beside just 
335 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


such another, and the way on board was down a narrow 
lane of water between the two, about a yard and a half 
wide at one end, and gradually converging to a point. 
At the moment of their entry into this narrow passage, 
a brilliantly painted rival paddled down the river like 
a trotting steed, creating such a series of waves and 
splashes that their frail wherry was tossed like a teacup, 
and the vicar and his wife slanted this way and that, 
inclining their heads into contact with a Punch-and- 
Judy air and countenance, the wavelets striking the 
sides of the two hulls, and flapping back into their 
laps. 

* Dreadful ! horrible ! * Mr. Swancourt murmured 
privately ; and said aloud, ‘ I thought we walked on 
board. I don’t think really I should have come, if I 
had known this trouble was attached to it.’ 

‘ If they must splash, I wish they would splash us 
with clean water,’ said the old lady, wiping her dress 
with her handkerchief. 

* I hope it is perfectly safe,’ continued the vicar. 

* O papa ! you are not very brave,’ cried Elfride 
merrily. 

1 Bravery is only obtuseness to the perception of 
contingencies,’ Mr. Swancourt severely answered. 

Mrs. Swancourt laughed, and Elfride laughed, and 
Knight laughed, in the midst of which pleasantness a 
man shouted to them from some position between their 
heads and the sky, and they found they were close to 
the Juliet , into which they quiveringly ascended. 

It having been found that the lowness of the tide 
would prevent their getting off for an hour, the Swan- 
courts, having nothing else to do, allowed their eyes to 
idle upon men in blue jerseys performing mysterious 
mending operations with tar-twine ; they turned to look 
at the dashes of lurid sunlight, like burnished copper 
stars afloat on the ripples, which danced into and tan- 
talized their vision \ or listened to the loud music of a 
336 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


steam-crane at work close by; or to sighing sounds 
from the funnels of passing steamers, getting dead as 
they grew more distant ; or to shouts from the decks 
of different craft in their vicinity, all of them assuming 
the form of ‘ Ah-he-hay ! ’ 

Half-past ten : not yet off. Mr. Swancourt breathed 
a breath of weariness, and looked at his fellow-travellers 
in general. Their faces were certainly not worth looking 
at. The expression ‘ Waiting ’ was written upon them 
so absolutely that nothing more could be discerned 
there. All animation was suspended till Providence 
should raise the water and let them go. 

* I have been thinking/ said Knight, ‘ that we have 
come amongst the rarest class of people in the kingdom. 
Of all human characteristics, a low opinion of the value 
of his own time by an individual must be among the 
strangest to find. Here we see numbers of that patient 
and happy species. Rovers, as distinct from travellers.’ 

‘ But they are pleasure-seekers, to whom time is of 
no importance.’ 

* Oh no. The pleasure-seekers we meet on the 
grand routes are more anxious than commercial 
travellers to rush on. And added to the loss of time 
in getting to their journey’s end, these exceptional 
people take their chance of sea-sickness by coming this 
way.’ 

* Can it be ? ’ inquired the vicar with apprehension. 
* Surely not, Mr. Knight, just here in our English 
Channel — close at our doors, as I may say.’ 

‘ Entrance passages are very draughty places, and the 
Channel is like the rest. It ruins the temper of sailors. 
It has been calculated by philosophers that more damns 
go up to heaven from the Channel, in the course of a 
year, than from all the five oceans put together.’ 

They really start now, and the dead looks of all the 
throng come to life immediately. The man who has 
been frantically hauling in a rope that bade fair to have 
337 y 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


no end ceases his labours, and they glide down the 
serpentine bends of the Thames. 

Anything anywhere was a mine of interest to Elfride, 
and so was this. 

‘ It is well enough now,’ said Mrs. Swancourt, after 
they had passed the Nore, * but I can’t say I have cared 
for my voyage hitherto.’ For being now in the open 
sea a slight breeze had sprung up, which cheered her 
as well as her two younger companions. But unfortu- 
nately it had a reverse effect upon the vicar, who, after 
turning a sort of apricot-jam colour, interspersed with 
dashes of raspberry, pleaded indisposition, and vanished 
from their sight. 

The afternoon wore on. Mrs. Swancourt kindly sat 
apart by herself reading, and the betrothed pair were 
left to themselves. Elfride clung trustingly to Knight’s 
arm, and proud was she to walk with him up and down 
the deck, or to go forward, and leaning with him against 
the forecastle rails, watch the setting sun gradually 
withdrawing itself over their stern into a huge bank of 
livid cloud with golden edges that rose to meet it. 

She was childishly full of life and spirits, though 
in walking up and down with him before the other 
passengers, and getting noticed by them, she was at 
starting rather confused, it being the first time she had 
shown herself so openly under that kind of protection. 
* I expect they are envious and saying things about 
us, don’t you ? ’ she would whisper to Knight with a 
stealthy smile. 

* Oh no,’ he would answer unconcernedly. ‘ Why 
should they envy us, and what can they say ? ’ 

‘ Not any harm, of course,’ Elfride replied, * except 
such as this : “ How happy those two are ! she is proud 
enough now.” What makes it worse,’ she continued in 
the extremity of confidence, ‘ I heard those two cricket- 
ing men say just now, “ She’s the nobbiest girl on the 
boat.” But I don’t mind it, you know, Harry.’ 

338 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


‘ I should hardly have supposed you did, even if you 
had not told me,’ said Knight with great blandness. 

She was never tired of asking her lover questions 
and admiring his answers, good, bad, or indifferent as 
they might be. The evening grew dark and night came 
on, and lights shone upon them from the horizon and 
from the sky. 

‘ Now look there ahead of us, at that halo in the air, 
of silvery brightness. Watch it, and you will see what 
it comes to.’ 

She watched for a few minutes, when two white 
lights emerged from the side of a hill, and showed 
themselves to be the origin of the halo. 

‘ What a dazzling brilliance ! What do they mark ? ’ 

* The South Foreland : they were previously covered 
by the cliff.’ 

* What is that level line of little sparkles — a town, I 
suppose ? ’ 

‘ That’s Dover.’ 

All this time, and later, soft sheet lightning expanded 
from a cloud in their path, enkindling their faces as 
they paced up and down, shining over the water, and, 
for a moment, showing the horizon as a keen line. 

Elfride slept soundly that night. Her first thought 
the next morning was the thrilling one that Knight was 
as close at hand as when they were at home at Endel- 
stow, and her first sight, on looking out of the cabin 
window, was the perpendicular face of Beachy Head, 
gleaming white in a brilliant six-o’clock-in-the-morning 
sun. This fair daybreak, however, soon changed its 
aspect. A cold wind and a pale mist descended upon 
the sea, and seemed to threaten a dreary day. 

When they were nearing Southampton, Mrs. Swan- 
court came to say that her husband was so ill that he 
wished to be put on shore here, and left to do the 
remainder of the journey by land. ‘ He will be per- 
fectly well directly he treads firm ground again. Which 
339 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 

shall we do — go with him, or finish our voyage as we 
intended ? ’ 

Elfride was comfortably housed under an umbrella 
which Knight was holding over her to keep off the 
wind. ‘ Oh, don’t let us go on shore ! * she said with 
dismay. ‘ It would be such a pity ! ’ 

* That’s very fine,’ said Mrs. Swancourt archly, as 
to a child. ‘ See, the wind has increased her colour, 
the sea her appetite and spirits, and somebody her 
happiness. Yes, it would be a pity, certainly.’ 

* ’Tis my misfortune to be always spoken to from a 
pedestal,’ sighed Elfride. 

‘Well, we will do as you like, Mrs. Swancourt,’ 
said Knight, ‘ but ’ 

* I myself would rather remain on board,’ interrupted 
the elder lady. ‘ And Mr. Swancourt particularly wishes 
to go by himself. So that shall settle the matter.’ 

The vicar, now a drab colour, was put ashore, and 
became as well as ever forthwith. 

Elfride, sitting alone in a retired part of the vessel, 
saw a veiled woman walk aboard among the very latest 
arrivals at this port. She was clothed in black silk, and 
carried a dark shawl upon her arm. The woman, 
without looking around her, turned to the quarter 
allotted to the second-cabin passengers. All the car- 
nation Mrs. Swancourt had complimented her step- 
daughter upon possessing left Elfride’s cheeks, and 
she trembled visibly. 

She ran to the other side of the boat, where Mrs. 
Swancourt was standing. 

‘ Let us go home by railway with papa, after all,’ 
she pleaded earnestly. ‘ I would rather go with him — 
shall we ? ’ 

Mrs. Swancourt looked around for a moment, as if 
unable to decide. ‘ Ah,’ she exclaimed, ‘ it is too late 
now. Why did not you say so before, when we had 
plenty of time ? ’ 


340 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


The Juliet had at that minute let go, the engines 
had started, and they were gliding slowly away from the 
quay. There was no help for it but to remain, unless 
the Juliet could be made to put back, and that would 
create a great disturbance. Elfride gave up the idea 
and submitted quietly. Her happiness was sadly 
mutilated now. 

The woman whose presence had so disturbed her 
was exactly like Mrs. Jethway. She seemed to haunt 
Elfride like a shadow. After several minutes’ vain en- 
deavour to account for any design Mrs. Jethway could 
have in watching her, Elfride decided to think that, if 
it were the widow, the encounter was accidental. She 
remembered that the widow in her restlessness was often 
visiting the village near Southampton, which was her 
original home, and it was possible that she chose water- 
transit with the idea of saving expense. 

‘ What is the matter, Elfride ? ’ Knight inquired, 
standing before her. 

‘ Nothing more than that I am rather depressed.’ 

‘ I don’t much wonder at it ; that wharf was de- 
pressing. We seemed underneath and inferior to every- 
thing around us. But we shall be in the sea breeze 
again soon, and that will freshen you, dear.’ 

The evening closed in and dusk increased as they 
made way down Southampton Water and through the 
Solent. Elfride’s disturbance of mind was such that 
her light spirits of the foregoing four and twenty hours 
had entirely deserted her. The weather too had grown 
more gloomy, for though the showers of the morning 
had ceased, the sky was covered more closely than ever 
with dense leaden clouds. How beautiful was the sunset 
when they rounded the North Foreland the previous 
evening ! now it was impossible to tell within half an 
hour the time of the luminary’s going down. Knight 
led her about, and being by this time accustomed to 
her sudden changes of mood, overlooked the necessity 
34 f 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


of a cause in regarding the conditions — impressionable- 
ness and elasticity. 

Elfride looked stealthily to the other end of the 
vessel. Mrs. Jethway, or her double, was sitting at 
the stern — her eye steadily regarding Elfride. 

‘ Let us go to the forepart/ she said quickly to 
Knight. * See there — the man is fixing the lights for 
the night/ 

Knight assented, and after watching the operation 
of fixing the red and the green lights on the port and 
starboard bows, and the hoisting of the white light to 
the masthead, he walked up and down with her till 
the increase of wind rendered promenading difficult. 
Elfride’s eyes were occasionally to be found furtively 
gazing abaft, to learn if her enemy were really there. 
Nobody was visible now. 

‘ Shall we go below ? ’ said Knight, seeing that the 
deck was nearly deserted. 

‘ No/ she said. ‘ If you will kindly get me a rug 
from Mrs. Swancourt, I should like, if you don’t mind, 
to stay here/ She had recently fancied the assumed 
Mrs. Jethway might be a first-class passenger, and 
dreaded meeting her by accident. 

Knight appeared with the rug, and they sat down 
behind a weather-cloth on the windward side, just as 
the two red eyes of the Needles glared upon them from 
the gloom, their pointed summits rising like shadowy 
phantom figures against the sky. It became necessary 
to go below to an eight-o’clock meal of nondescript 
kind, and Elfride was immensely relieved at finding no 
sign of Mrs. Jethway there. They again ascended, and 
remained above till Mrs. Snewson staggered up to them 
with the message that Mrs. Swancourt thought it was 
time for Elfride to come below. Knight accompanied 
her down, and returned again to pass a little more 
time on deck. 

Elfride partly undressed herself and lay down, and 
342 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


soon became unconscious, though her sleep was light. 
How long she had lain, she knew not, when by slow 
degrees she became cognizant of a whispering in her ear. 

c You are well on with him, I can see. Well, provoke 
me now, but my day will come, you will find.’ That 
seemed to be the utterance, or words to that effect. 

Elfride became broad awake and terrified. She 
knew the words, if real, could be only those of one 
person, and that person the widow Jethway. 

The lamp had gone out and the place was in dark- 
ness. In the next berth she could hear her stepmother 
breathing heavily, further on Snewson breathing more 
heavily still. These were the only other legitimate 
occupants of the cabin, and Mrs. Jethway must have 
stealthily come in by some means and retreated again, 
or else she had entered an empty berth next Snewson’s. 
The fear that this was the case increased Elfride’s per- 
turbation, till it assumed the dimensions of a certainty, 
for how could a stranger from the other end of the ship 
possibly contrive to get in? Could it have been a 
dream ? 

Elfride raised herself higher and looked out of the 
window. There was the sea, floundering and rushing 
against the ship’s side just by her head, and thence 
stretching away, dim and moaning, into an expanse of 
indistinctness ; and far beyond all this two placid lights 
like ray less stars. Now almost fearing to turn her face 
inwards again, lest Mrs. Jethway should appear at her 
elbow, Elfride meditated upon whether to call Snewson 
to keep her company. * Four bells ’ sounded, and she 
heard voices, which gave her a little courage. It was 
not worth while to call Snewson. 

At any rate Elfride could not stay there panting 
longer, at the risk of being again disturbed by that 
dreadful whispering. So wrapping herself up hurriedly 
she emerged into the passage, and by the aid of a faint 
light burning at the entrance to the saloon found the 
343 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


foot of the stairs, and ascended to the deck. Dreary 
the place was in the extreme. It seemed a new spot 
altogether in contrast with its daytime self. She could 
see the glowworm light from the binnacle, and the 
dim outline of the man at the wheel; also a form at 
the bows. Not another soul was apparent from stem 
to stern. 

Yes, there were two more — by the bulwarks. One 
proved to be her Harry, the other the mate. She was 
glad indeed, and on drawing closer found they were 
holding a low slow chat about nautical affairs. She 
ran up and slipped her hand through Knight’s arm, 
partly for love, partly for stability. 

‘ Elfie ! not asleep ? ’ said Knight, after moving a 
few steps aside with her. 

‘No: I cannot sleep. May I stay here? It is so 
dismal down there, and — and I was afraid. Where are 
we now ? * 

‘ Due south of Portland Bill. Those are the lights 
abeam of us : look. A terrible spot, that, on a stormy 
night. And do you see a very small light that dips 
and rises to the right ? That’s a light-ship on the 
dangerous shoal called the Shambles, where many a 
good vessel has gone to pieces. Between it and our- 
selves is the Race — a place where antagonistic currents 
meet and form whirlpools — a spot which is rough in 
the smoothest weather, and terrific in a wind. That 
dark, dreary horizon we just discern to the left is the 
West Bay, terminated landwards by the Chesil Beach.’ 

‘ What time is it, Harry ? ’ 

‘Just past two.’ 

‘ Are you going below ? ’ 

‘ Oh no ; not to-night. I prefer pure air.’ 

She fancied he might be displeased with her for 
coming to him at this unearthly hour. ‘ I should like 
to stay here too, if you will allow me,’ she said timidly. 
‘ I want to ask you things.’ 

344 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


* Allow you, Elfie ! ’ said Knight, putting his arm 
round her and drawing her closer. ‘ I am twice as 
happy with you by my side. Yes : we will stay, and 
watch the approach of day.’ 

So they again sought out the sheltered nook, and 
sitting down wrapped themselves in the rug as before. 

‘ What were you going to ask me ? ’ he inquired, as 
they undulated up and down. 

‘ Oh, it was not much — perhaps a thing I ought not 
to ask/ she said hesitatingly. Her sudden wish had 
really been to discover at once whether he had ever 
before been engaged to be married. If he had, she 
would make that a ground for telling him a little of her 
conduct with Stephen. Mrs. Jeth way’s seeming words 
had so depressed the girl that she herself now painted 
her flight in the darkest colours, and longed to ease her 
burdened mind by an instant confession. If Knight 
had ever been imprudent himself, he might, she hoped, 
forgive all. 

* I wanted to ask you/ she went on, ‘ if — you had ever 
been engaged before.’ She added tremulously, ‘ I hope 
you have — I mean, I don’t mind at all if you have.’ 

‘ No, I never was/ Knight instantly and heartily re- 
plied. ‘ Elfride ’ — and there was a certain happy pride in 
his tone — ‘ I am twelve years older than you, and I have 
been about the world, and, in a way, into society, and 
you have not. And yet I am not so unfit for you as 
strict-thinking people might imagine, who would assume 
the difference in age to signify most surely an equal 
addition to my practice in love-making.’ 

Elfride shivered. 

‘ You are cold — is the wind too much for you ? ’ 

‘ No/ she said gloomily. The belief which had been 
her sheet-anchor in hoping for forgiveness had proved 
false. This account of the exceptional nature of his 
experience, a matter which would have set her rejoicing 
two years ago, chilled her now like a frost. 

* 345 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


* You don’t mind my asking you ? ’ she continued. 

‘ Oh no — not at all.’ 

‘ And have you never kissed many ladies ? ’ she 
whispered, hoping he would say a hundred at the least. 

The time, the circumstances, and the scene were 
such as to draw confidences from the most reserved. 

* Elfride,’ whispered Knight in reply, ‘ it is strange you 
should have asked that question. But I’ll answer it, 
though I have never told such a thing before. I have 
been rather absurd in my avoidance of women. I have 
never given a woman a kiss in my life, except yourself 
and my mother.’ The man of two and thirty with the 
experienced mind warmed all over with a boy’s ingenu- 
ous shame as he made the confession. 

* What, not one ? ’ she faltered. 

‘ No ; not one.’ 

‘ How very strange ! ’ 

‘Yes, the reverse experience may be commoner. 
And yet, to those who have observed their own sex, 
as I have, my case is not remarkable. Men about 
town are women’s favourites — that’s the postulate — and 
superficial people don’t think far enough to see that 
there may be reserved, lonely exceptions.’ 

‘ Are you proud of it, Harry ? ’ 

* No, indeed. Of late years I have wished I had 
gone my ways and trod out my measure like lighter- 
hearted men. I have thought of how many happy ex- 
periences I may have lost through never going to woo.’ 

‘ Then why did you hold aloof? ’ 

‘ I cannot say. I don’t think it was my nature to : 
circumstance hindered me, perhaps. I have regretted 
it for another reason. This great remissness of mine 
has had its effect upon me. The older I have grown, 
the more distinctly have I perceived that it was abso- 
lutely preventing me from liking any woman who was 
not as unpractised as I ; and I gave up the expectation 
of finding a nineteenth-century young lady in my own 
346 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


raw state. Then I found you, Elfride, and I felt for 
the first time that my fastidiousness was a blessing. 
And it helped to make me worthy of you. I felt at 
once that, differing as we did in other experiences, in 
this matter I resembled you. Well, aren’t you glad to 
hear it, Elfride ? ’ 

‘Yes, I am,’ she answered in a forced voice. ‘ But 
I always had thought that men made lots of engage- 
ments before they married — especially if they don’t 
marry very young.’ 

‘ So all women think, I suppose — and rightly, indeed, 
of the majority of bachelors, as I said before. But an 
appreciable minority of slow-coach men do not — and it 
makes them very awkward when they do come to the 
point. However, it didn’t matter in my case.’ 

‘ Why ? ’ she asked uneasily. 

‘ Because you know even less of love-making and 
matrimonial prearrangement than I, and so you can’t 
draw invidious comparisons if I do my engaging im- 
properly.’ 

‘ I think you do it beautifully ! ’ 

* Thank you, dear. But,’ continued Knight laugh- 
ingly, ‘ your opinion is not that of an expert, which alone 
is of value.’ 

Had she answered, ‘ Yes, it is,’ half as strongly as 
she felt it, Knight might have been a little astonished. 

‘ If you had ever been engaged to be married before,’ 
he went on, * I expect your opinion of my addresses 
would be different. But then, I should not ’ 

Should not what, Harry ? ’ 

‘ Oh, I was merely going to say that in that case I 
should never have given myself the pleasure of propos- 
ing to you, since your freedom from that experience 
was your attraction, darling.’ 

‘ You are severe on women, are you not ? ’ 

‘ No, I think not. I had a right to please my taste, 
and that was for untried lips. Other men than those of 
347 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 

my sort acquire the taste as they get older — but don’t 
find an Elfride 9 

‘ What horrid sound is that we hear when we pitch 
forward ? ■ 

‘ Only the screw — don’t find an Elfride as I did. 
To think that I should have discovered such an unseen 
flower down there in the West — to whom a man is as 
much as a multitude to some women, and a trip down 
the English Channel like a voyage round the world ! ’ 

‘ And would you,’ she said, and her voice was 
tremulous, ‘have given up a lady — if you had become 
engaged to her — and then found she had had one kiss 
before yours — and would you have — gone away and 
left her ? ’ 

‘ One kiss, — no, hardly for that.’ 

‘ Two ? ’ 

‘ Well — I could hardly say inventorially like that. 
Too much of that sort of thing certainly would make 
me dislike a woman. But let us confine our attention 
to ourselves, not go thinking of might have beens.’ 

So Elfride had allowed her thoughts to ‘dally with 
false surmise/ and every one of Knight’s words fell 
upon her like a weight. After this they were silent for 
a long time, gazing upon the black mysterious sea, and 
hearing the strange voice of the restless wind. A rock- 
ing to and fro on the waves, when the breeze is not too 
violent and cold, produces a soothing effect even upon 
the most highly-wrought mind. Elfride slowly sank 
against Knight, and looking down, he found by her soft 
regular breathing that she had fallen asleep. Not 
wishing to disturb her, he continued still, and took an 
intense pleasure in supporting her warm young form as 
it rose and fell with her every breath. 

Knight fell to dreaming too, though he continued 
wide awake. It was pleasant to realize the implicit 
trust she placed in him, and to think of the charming 
innocence of one who could sink to sleep in so simple 
348 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


and unceremonious a manner. More than all, the 
musing unpractical student felt the immense responsi- 
bility he was taking upon himself by becoming the 
protector and guide of such a trusting creature. The 
quiet slumber of her soul lent a quietness to his own. 
Then she moaned, and turned herself restlessly. Pre- 
sently her mutterings became distinct : 

‘ Don’t tell him — he will not love me. ... I did not 
mean any disgrace — indeed I did not, so don’t tell 
Harry. We were going to be married — that was why I 
ran away. . . . And he says he will not have a kissed 
woman. . . . And if you tell him he will go away, and 
I shall die. I pray have mercy — Oh ! ’ 

Elfride started up wildly. 

The previous moment a musical ding-dong had 
spread into the air from their right hand, and awakened 
her. 

1 What is it ? ’ she exclaimed in terror. 

* Only “ eight bells,” ’ said Knight soothingly. 
* Don’t be frightened, little bird, you are safe. What 
have you been dreaming about ? ’ 

‘ I can’t tell, I can’t tell ! ’ she said with a shudder. 
‘ Oh, I don’t know what to do ! ’ 

* Stay quietly with me. We shall soon see the dawn 
now. Look, the morning star is lovely over there. 
The clouds have completely cleared off whilst you have 
been sleeping. What have you been dreaming of?’ 

‘ A woman in our parish.’ 

* Don’t you like her ? ’ 

* I don’t. She doesn’t like me. Where are we ? 9 

* About south of the Exe.’ 

Knight said no more on the words of her dream. 
They watched the sky till Elfride grew calm, and the 
dawn appeared. It was mere wan lightness first. Then 
the wind blew in a changed spirit, and died away to a 
zephyr. The star dissolved into the day. 

‘ That’s how I should like to die,’ said Elfride, rising 
349 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


from her seat and leaning over the bulwark to watch the 
star’s last expiring gleam. 

‘ As the lines say,’ Knight replied — 

* “ To set as sets the morning star, which goes 
Not down behind the darken’d west, nor hides 
Obscured among the tempests of the sky, 

But melts away into the light of heaven. ” * 

‘ Oh, other people have thought the same thing, have 
they ? That’s always the case with my originalities — 
they are original to nobody but myself.’ 

‘ Not only the case with yours. When I was a 
young hand at reviewing I used to find that a frightful 
pitfall — dilating upon subjects I met with, which were 
novelties to me, and finding afterwards they had been 
exhausted by the thinking world when I was in 
pinafores.’ 

‘ That is delightful. Whenever I find you have done 
a foolish thing I am glad, because it seems to bring 
you a little nearer to me, who have done many.’ And 
Elfride thought again of her enemy asleep under the 
deck they trod. 

All up the coast, prominences singled themselves out 
from recesses. Then a rosy sky spread over the eastern 
sea and behind the low line of land, flinging its livery 
in dashes upon the thin airy clouds in that direction. 
Every projection on the land seemed now so many 
fingers anxious to catch a little of the liquid light thrown 
so prodigally over the sky, and after a fantastic time of 
lustrous yellows in the east, the higher elevations along 
the shore were flooded with the same hues. The bluff 
and bare contours of Start Point caught the brightest, 
earliest glow of all, and so also did the sides of its white 
lighthouse, perched upon a shelf in its precipitous front 
like a mediaeval saint in a niche. Their lofty neighbour 
Bolt Head on the left remained as yet ungilded, and 
retained its gray. 


350 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 

Then up came the sun, as it were in jerks, just to 
seaward of the easternmost point of land, flinging out 
a Jacob’s-ladder path of light from itself to Elfride and 
Knight, and coating them with rays in a few minutes. 
The inferior dignitaries of the shore — Froward Point, 
Berry Head, and Prawle — all had acquired their share of 
the illumination ere this, and at length the very smallest 
protuberance of wave, cliff, or inlet, even to the inner- 
most recesses of the lovely valley of the Dart, had its 
portion ; and sunlight, now the common possession of 
all, ceased to be the wonderful and coveted thing it had 
been a short half hour before. 

After breakfast, Plymouth arose into view, and grew 
distincter to their nearing vision, the Breakwater ap- 
pearing like a streak of phosphoric light upon the 
surface of the sea. Elfride looked furtively around for 
Mrs. Jethway, but could discern no shape like hers. 
Afterwards, in the bustle of landing, she looked again 
with the same result, by which time the woman had 
probably glided upon the quay unobserved. Expand- 
ing with a sense of relief, Elfride waited whilst Knight 
looked to their luggage, and then saw her father ap- 
proaching through the crowd, twirling his walking-stick 
to catch their attention. Elbowing their way to him 
they all entered the town, which smiled as sunny a smile 
upon Elfride as it had done between one and two years 
earlier, when she had entered it at precisely the same 
hour as the bnde-elect of Stephen Smith. 


XXX 


•Vassal unto Love.' 


ElFRIDE clung closer to Knight as day succeeded 
day. Whatever else might admit of question, there 
could be no dispute that the allegiance she bore him 
absorbed her whole soul and existence. A greater than 
Stephen had arisen, and she had left all to follow him. 

The unreserved girl was never chary of letting her 
lover discover how much she admired him. She never 
once held an idea in opposition to any one of his, or 
insisted on any point with him, or showed any inde- 
pendence, or held her own on any subject. His 
lightest whim she respected and obeyed as law, and 
if, expressing her opinion on a matter, he took up 
the subject and differed from her, she instantly threw 
down her own opinion as wrong and untenable. Even 
her ambiguities and esptiglerie were but media of the 
same manifestation ; acted charades, embodying the 
words of her prototype, the tender and susceptible 
daughter-in-law of Naomi : ‘ Let me find favour in 
thy sight, my lord; for that thou hast comforted me, 
and for that thou hast spoken friendly unto thine 
handmaid.’ 

She was syringing the plants one wet day in the 
352 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


greenhouse. Knight was sitting under a great passion- 
flower observing the scene. Sometimes he looked out 
at the rain from the sky, and then at Elfride’s inner 
rain of larger drops, which fell from trees and shrubs, 
after having previously hung from the twigs like small 
silver fruit. 

‘ I must give you something to make you think of 
me during this autumn at your chambers,’ she was 
saying. ‘ What shall it be ? Portraits do more harm 
than good, by selecting the worst expression of which 
your face is capable. Hair is unlucky. And you 
don’t like jewellery.’ 

‘ Something which shall bring back to my mind the 
many scenes we have enacted in this conservatory. I 
see what I should prize very much. That dwarf myrtle 
tree in the pot, which you have been so carefully 
tending.’ 

Elfride looked thoughtfully at the myrtle. 

‘ I can carry it comfortably in my hat box,’ said 
Knight. 1 And I will put it in my window, and so, 
it being always before my eyes, I shall think of you 
continually.’ 

It so happened that the myrtle which Knight 
had singled out had a peculiar beginning and history. 
It had originally been a twig worn in Stephen Smith’s 
button-hole, and he had taken it thence, stuck it into 
the pot, and told her that if it grew, she was to take 
care of it, and keep it in remembrance of him when he 
was far away. 

She looked wistfully at the plant, and a sense of 
fairness to Smith’s memory caused her a pang of 
regret that Knight should have asked for that very 
one. It seemed exceeding a common heartlessness to 
let it go. 

* Is there not anything you like better ? ’ she said 
sadly. ‘ That is only an ordinary myrtle.’ 

‘No: I am fond of myrtle.’ Seeing that she did 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


not take kindly to the idea, he said again, ‘ Why do you 
object to my having that ? ’ 

* Oh no — I don’t object precisely — it was a feeling. 
— Ah, here’s another cutting lately struck, and just as 
small — of a better kind, and with prettier leaves — 
myrtus microphylla.’ 

‘ That will do nicely. Let it be put in my room, 
that I may not forget it. What romance attaches to 
the other ? ’ 

* It was a gift to me.’ 

The subject then dropped. Knight thought no 
more of the matter till, on entering his bedroom in 
the evening, he found the second myrtle placed upon 
his dressing-table as he had directed. He stood for a 
moment admiring the fresh appearance of the Jeaves by 
candlelight, and then he thought of the transaction of 
the day. 

Male lovers as well as female can be spoilt by too 
much kindness, and Elfride’s uniform submissiveness 
had given Knight a rather exacting manner at crises, 
attached to her as he was. ‘ Why should she have 
refused the one I first chose?’ he now asked himself. 
Even such slight opposition as she had shown then 
was exceptional enough to make itself noticeable. He 
was not vexed with her in the least : the mere varia- 
tion of her way to-day from her usual ways kept 
him musing on the subject, because it perplexed him. 
11 It was a gift’ — those were her words. Admitting 
it to be a gift, he thought she could hardly value a 
mere friend more than she valued him as a lover, and 
giving the plant into his charge would have made no 
difference. 1 Except, indeed, it was the gift of a lover,’ 
he murmured. 

‘ I wonder if Elfride has ever had a lover before ? ’ 
he said aloud, as a new idea, quite. This and com- 
panion thoughts were enough to occupy him completely 
till he fell asleep — rather later than usual. 

354 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


The next day, when they were again alone, he said 
to her rather suddenly — 

‘ Do you love me more or less, Elfie, for what I told 
you on board the steamer ? * 

‘You told me so many things,’ she returned, lifting 
her eyes to his and smiling. 

‘ I mean the confession you coaxed out of me — that 
I had never been in the position of lover before.’ 

‘ It is a satisfaction, I suppose, to be the first in 
your heart,’ she said to him, with an attempt to continue 
her smiling. 

‘ I am going to ask you a question now,’ said 
Knight, somewhat awkwardly. ‘I only ask it in a 
whimsical way, you know : not with great seriousness, 
Elfride. You may think it odd, perhaps.’ 

Elfride tried desperately to keep the colour in her 
face. She could not, though distressed to think that 
getting pale showed consciousness of deeper guilt than 
merely getting red. 

‘ Oh no — I shall not think that,’ she said, because 
obliged to say something to fill the pause which followed 
her questioner’s remark. 

‘ It is this : have you ever had a lover ? I am 
almost sure you have not ; but, have you ? ’ 

* Not, as it were, a lover ; I mean, not worth men- 
tioning, Harry,’ she faltered. 

Knight, overstrained in sentiment as he knew the 
feeling to be, felt some sickness of heart. 

‘ Still, he was a lover ? ’ 

‘Well, a sort of lover, I suppose,’ she responded 
tardily. 

‘ A man, I mean, you know.’ 

‘ Yes ; but only a mere person, and ■’ 

‘ But truly your lover ? ’ 

‘ Yes ; a lover certainly — he was that. Yes, he 
might have been called my lover.’ 

Knight said nothing to this for a minute or more, 

355 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


and kept silent time with his finger to the tick of 
the old library clock, in which room the colloquy was 
going on. 

* You don’t mind, Harry, do you ? ’ she said 
anxiously, nestling close to him, and watching his face. 

* Of course, I don’t seriously mind. In reason, a 
man cannot object to such a trifle. I only thought you 
hadn’t — that was all.’ 

However, one ray was abstracted from the glory 
about her head. But afterwards, when Knight was 
wandering by himself over the bare and breezy hills, 
and meditating on the subject, that ray suddenly 
returned. For she might have had a lover, and never 
have cared in the least for him. She might have used 
the word improperly, and meant ‘ admirer ’ all the time. 
Of course she had been admired ; and one man might 
have made his admiration more prominent than that of 
the rest — a very natural case. 

They were sitting on one of the garden seats when 
he found occasion to put the supposition to the test. 
* Did you love that lover or admirer of yours ever so 
little, Elfie?’ 

She murmured reluctantly, ‘ Yes, I think I did.’ 

Knight felt the same faint touch of misery. * Only 
a very little ? ’ he said. 

‘ I am not sure how much.’ 

‘ But you are sure, darling, you loved him a little ? * 

‘ I think I am sure I loved him a little.’ 

* And not a great deal, Elfie ? ’ 

‘My love was not supported by reverence for his 
powers.’ 

* But, Elfride, did you love him deeply ? ’ said Knight 
restlessly. 

‘ I don’t exactly know how deep you mean by 
deeply.’ 

‘ That’s nonsense.’ 

‘You misapprehend; and you have let go my 
356 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


hand ! ’ she cried, her eyes filling with tears. ‘ Harry, 
don’t be severe with me, and don’t question me. I 
did not love him as I do you. And could it be deeply 
if I did not think him cleverer than myself? For I 
did not. You grieve me so much — you can’t think.’ 

* I will not say another word about it.’ 

* And you will not think about it, either, will you ? 
I know you think of weaknesses in me after I am out 
of your sight ; and not knowing what they are, I can- 
not combat them. I almost wish you were of a grosser 
nature, Harry ; in truth I do ! Or rather, I wish I 
could have the advantages such a nature in you would 
afford me, and yet have you as you are.’ 

* What advantages would they be ? ’ 

* Less anxiety, and more security. Ordinary men are 
not so delicate in their tastes as you ; and where the 
lover or husband is not fastidious, and refined, and of 
a deep nature, things seem to go on better, I fancy — as 
far as I have been able to observe the world.’ 

‘ Yes ; I suppose it is right. Shallowness has this 
advantage, that you can’t be drowned there.’ 

‘ But I think I’ll have you as you are ; yes, I will ! ’ 
she said winsomely. * The practical husbands and 
wives who take things philosophically are very humdrum, 
are they not ? Yes, it would kill me quite. You please 
me best as you are.’ 

* Even though I wish you had never cared for one 
before me ? ’ 

* Yes. And you must not wish it. Don’t ! ’ 

‘ I’ll try not to, Elfride.’ 

So she hoped, but her heart was troubled. If he 
felt so deeply on this point, what would he say did he 
know all, and see it as Mrs. Jethway saw it ? He would 
never make her the happiest girl in the world by taking 
her to be his own for aye. The thought enclosed her 
as a tomb whenever it presented itself to her perturbed 
brain. She tried to believe that Mrs. Jethway would 
357 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


never do her such a cruel wrong as to increase the bad 
appearance of her folly by innuendoes ; and concluded 
that concealment, having been begun, must be persisted 
in, if possible. For what he might consider as bad as 
the fact, was her previous concealment of it by strategy. 

But Elfride knew Mrs. Jethway to be her enemy, and 
to hate her. It was possible she would do her worst. 
And should she do it, all might be over. 

Would the woman listen to reason, and be per- 
suaded not to ruin one who had never intentionally 
harmed her ? 

It was night in the valley between Endelstow Crags 
and the shore. The brook which trickled that way to 
the sea was distinct in its murmurs now, and over the 
line of its course there began to hang a white riband 
of fog. Against the sky, on the left hand of the vale, 
the black form of the church could be seen. On tho 
other rose hazel-bushes, a few trees, and where these 
were absent, furze tufts — as tall as men — on stems 
nearly as stout as timber. The shriek of some bird 
was occasionally heard, as it flew terror-stricken from its 
first roost, to seek a new sleeping-place, where it might 
pass the night unmolested. 

In the evening shade, some way down the valley, 
and under a row of scrubby oaks, a cottage could still 
oe discerned. It stood absolutely alone. The house 
was rather large, and the windows of some of the rooms 
were nailed up with boards on the outside, which gave 
a particularly deserted appearance to the whole erection. 
From the front door an irregular series of rough and 
misshapen steps, cut in the solid rock, led down to the 
edge of the streamlet, which, at their extremity, was 
hollowed into a basin through which the water trickled. 
This was evidently the means of water supply to the 
dweller or dwellers in the cottage. 

A light footstep was heard descending from the 
358 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


higher slopes of the hillside. Indistinct in the pathway 
appeared a moving female shape, who advanced and 
knocked timidly at the door. No answer being re- 
turned the knock was repeated, with the same result, 
and it was then repeated a third time. This also was 
unsuccessful. 

From one of the only two windows on the ground 
floor which were not boarded up came rays of light, 
no shutter or curtain obscuring the room from the eyes 
of a passer on the outside. So few walked that way 
after nightfall that any such means to secure secrecy 
were probably deemed unnecessary. 

The inequality of the rays falling upon the trees 
outside told that the light had its origin in a flickering 
fire only. The visitor, after the third knocking, stepped 
a little to the left in order to gain a view of the interior, 
and threw back the hood from her face. The dancing 
yellow sheen revealed the fair and anxious countenance 
of Elfride. 

Inside the house this firelight was enough to illumine 
the room distinctly, and to show that the furniture of 
the cottage was superior to what might have been ex- 
pected from so unpromising an exterior. It also showed 
to Elfride that the room was empty. Beyond the light 
quiver and flap of the flames nothing moved or was 
audible therein. 

She turned the handle and entered, throwing off the 
cloak which enveloped her, under which she appeared 
without hat or bonnet, and in the sort of half-toilette 
country people ordinarily dine in. Then advancing to 
the foot of the staircase she called distinctly, but some- 
what fearfully, * Mrs. Jethway ! ’ 

No answer. 

With a look of relief and regret combined, denoting 
that ease came to the heart and disappointment to the 
brain, Elfride paused for several minutes, as if un- 
decided how to act. Determining to wait, she sat 
359 


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down on a chair. The minutes drew on, and after 
sitting on the thorns of impatience for half an hour, 
she searched her pocket, took therefrom a letter, and 
tore off the blank leaf. Then taking out a pencil she 
wrote upon the paper : 

‘ Dear Mrs. Jethway, — I have been to visit you. 
I wanted much to see you, but I cannot wait any longer. 
I came to beg you not to execute the threats you have 
repeated to me. Do not, I beseech you, Mrs. Jethway, 
let any one know I ran away from home ! It would 
ruin me with him, and break my heart. I will do any- 
thing for you, if you will be kind to me. In the name 
of our common womanhood, do not, I implore you, 
make a scandal of me. — Yours, E. Swancourt.’ 

She folded the note cornerwise, directed it, and 
placed it on the table. Then again drawing the hood 
over her curly head she emerged silently as she had 
come. 

Whilst this episode had been in action at Mrs. 
Jethway’s cottage, Knight had gone from the dining- 
room into the drawing-room, and found Mrs. Swancourt 
there alone. 

4 Elfride has vanished upstairs or somewhere/ she 
said. 

‘And I have been reading an article in an old 
number of the Present that I lighted on by chance a 
short time ago ; it is an article you once told us was 
yours. Well, Harry, with due deference to your literary 
powers, allow me to say that this effusion is all nonsense, 
in my opinion.’ 

4 What is it about ? 9 said Knight, taking up the 
paper and reading. 

4 There : don’t get red about it. Own that experi- 
ence has taught you to be more charitable. I have 
never read such unchivalrous sentiments in my life — 
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A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


from a man, I mean. There, I forgive you; it was 
before you knew Elfride/ 

1 Oh yes/ said Knight, looking up. ‘ I remember 
now. The text of that sermon was not my own at all, 
but was suggested to me by a young man named Smith 
— the same whom I have mentioned to you as coming 
from this parish. I thought the idea rather ingenious 
at the time, and enlarged it to the weight of a few 
guineas, because I had nothing else in my head/ 

‘ Which idea do you call the text ? I am curious to 
know that/ 

‘ Well, this/ said Knight, somewhat unwillingly. 
* That experience teaches, and your sweetheart, no less 
than your tailor, is necessarily very imperfect in her 
duties, if you are her first patron : and conversely, the 
sweetheart who is graceful under the initial kiss 
must be supposed to have had some practice in the 
trade/ 

1 And do you mean to say that you wrote that upon 
the strength of another man's remark, without having 
tested it by practice ? ’ 

‘ Yes — indeed I do/ 

‘ Then I think it was uncalled for and unfair. And 
how do you know it is true? I expect you regret it 
now/ 

‘ Since you bring me into a serious mood, I will 
speak candidly. I do believe that remark to be per- 
fectly true, and, having written it, I would defend it 
anywhere. But I do often regret having ever written 
it, as well as others of the sort. I have grown older 
since, and I find such a tone of writing is calculated to 
do harm in the world. Every literary Jack becomes a 
gentleman if he can only pen a few indifferent satires 
upon womankind : women themselves, too, have taken 
to the trick; and so, upon the whole, I begin to be 
rather ashamed of my companions/ 

‘ Ah, Henry, you have fallen in love since, and it 

2 A 36l 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


makes a difference/ said Mrs. Swancourt with a faint 
tone of banter. 

‘ That’s true ; but that is not my reason/ 

* Having found that, in a case of your own experb 
ence, a so-called goose was a swan, it seems absurd 
to deny such a possibility in other men’s experiences.’ 

‘ You can hit palpably, cousin Charlotte,’ said Knight. 

1 You are like the boy who puts a stone inside his 
snowball, and I shall play with you no longer. Excuse 
me — I am going for my evening stroll.’ 

Though Knight had spoken jestingly, this incident 
and conversation had caused him a sudden depression. 
Coming, rather singularly, just after his discovery that 
Elfride had known what it was to love warmly before 
she had known him, his mind dwelt upon the subject, 
and the familiar pipe he smoked, whilst pacing up and 
down the shrubbery-path, failed to be a solace. He 
thought again of those idle words — hitherto quite for- 
gotten — about the first kiss of a girl, and the theory 
seemed more than reasonable. Of course their sting 
now lay in their bearing on Elfride. 

Elfride, under Knight’s kiss, had certainly been a 
very different woman from herself under Stephen’s. 
Whether for good or for ill, she had marvellously well 
learnt a betrothed lady’s part ; and the fascinating finish 
of her deportment in this second campaign did probably 
arise from her unreserved encouragement of Stephen. 
Knight, with all the rapidity of jealous sensitiveness, 
pounced upon some words she had inadvertently let fall 
about an earring, which he had only partially under- 
stood at the time. It was during that ‘ initial kiss ’ by 
the little waterfall : 

‘We must be careful. I lost the other by doing 
this ! * 

A flush which had in it as much of wounded pride 
as of sorrow, passed over Knight as he thought of what 
he had so frequently said to her in his simplicity. ‘ I 
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always meant to be the first comer in a woman’s heart ; 
fresh lips or none for me.’ How childishly blind he 
must have seemed to this mere girl ! How she must 
have laughed at him inwardly ! He absolutely writhed 
as he thought of the confession she had wrung from him 
on the boat in the darkness of night. The one con- 
ception which had sustained his dignity when drawn 
out of his shell on that occasion — that of her charming 
ignorance of all such matters — how absurd it was ! 

This man, whose imagination had been fed up to 
preternatural size by lonely study and silent observations 
of his kind — whose emotions had been drawn out long 
and delicate by his seclusion, like plants in a cellar — 
was now absolutely in pain. Moreover, several years of 
poetic study, and, if the truth must be told, poetic 
efforts, had tended to develop the affective side of his 
constitution still further, in proportion to his active 
faculties. It was his belief in the absolute newness of 
blandishment to Elfride which had constituted her 
primary charm. He began to think it was as hard to 
be earliest in a woman’s heart as it was to be first in the 
Pool of Bethesda. 

That Knight should have been thus constituted : 
that Elfride’s second lover should not have been one 
of the great mass of bustling mankind, little given to 
introspection, whose good-nature might have compen- 
sated for any lack of appreciativeness, was the chance 
of things. That her throbbing, self-confounding, in- 
discreet heart should have to defend itself unaided 
against the keen scrutiny and logical power which 
Knight, now that his suspicions were awakened, would 
sooner or later be sure to exercise against her, was her 
misfortune. A miserable incongruity was apparent in 
the circumstance of a strong mind practising its unerring 
archery upon a heart which the owner of that mind 
loved better than his own. 

Elfride’s docile devotion to Knight was now its own 

363 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


enemy. Clinging to him so dependency, she taught 
him in time to presume upon that devotion — a lesson 
men are not slow to learn. A slight rebelliousness 
occasionally would have done him no harm, and would 
have been a world of advantage to her. But she 
idolized him, and was proud to be his bond-servant. 


XXXI 


'A worm i’ the bud.' 

One day the reviewer said, ‘ Let us go to the cliffs 
again, Elfride ; ’ and, without consulting her wishes, he 
moved as if to start at once. 

* The cliff of our dreadful adventure ? ’ she inquired, 
with a shudder. ‘ Death stares me in the face in the 
person of that cliff/ 

Nevertheless, so entirely had she sunk her indivi- 
duality in his that the remark was not uttered as an 
expostulation, and she immediately prepared to accom- 
pany him. 

‘ No, not that place,’ said Knight. * It is ghastly 
to me, too. That other, I mean ; what is its name ? — 
Windy Beak.’ 

Windy Beak was the second cliff in height along 
that coast, and, as is frequently the case with the natural 
features of the globe no less than with the intellectual 
features of men, it enjoyed the reputation of being the 
first. Moreover, it was the cliff to which Elfride had 
ridden with Stephen Smith, on a well-remembered 
morning of his summer visit. 

So, though thought of the former cliff had caused 
her to shudder at the perils to which her lover and her- 

365 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


self had there been exposed, by being associated with 
Knight only it was not so objectionable as Windy 
Beak. That place was worse than gloomy, it was a 
perpetual reproach to her. 

But not liking to refuse, she said, * It is further than 
the other cliff.’ 

* Yes ; but you can ride.’ 

* And will you too ? ’ 

‘ No, I’ll walk.’ 

A duplicate of her original arrangement with Stephen. 
Some fatality must be hanging over her head. But she 
ceased objecting. 

* Very well, Harry, I’ll ride,’ she said meekly. 

A quarter of an hour later she was in the saddle. 
But how different the mood from that of the former 
time. She had, indeed, given up her position as queen 
of the less to be vassal of the greater. Here was no 
showing off now; no scampering out of sight with 
Pansy, to perplex and tire her companion ; no saucy 
remarks on La Belle Dame sans Merci. Elfride was 
burdened with the very intensity of her love. 

Knight did most of the talking along the journey. 
Elfride silently listened, and entirely resigned herself 
to the motions of the ambling horse upon which she 
sat, alternately rising and sinking gently, like a sea bird 
upon a sea wave. 

When they had reached the limit of a quadruped’s 
possibilities in walking, Knight tenderly lifted her from 
the saddle, tied the horse, and rambled on with her to 
the seat in the rock. Knight sat down, and drew 
Elfride deftly beside him, and they looked over the sea. 

Two or three degrees above that melancholy and 
eternally level line, the ocean horizon, hung a sun of 
brass, with no visible rays, in a sky of ashen hue. It 
was a sky the sun did not illuminate or enkindle, as is 
usual at sunsets. This sheet of sky was met by the 
salt mass of gray water, flecked here and there with 
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A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


white. A waft of dampness occasionally rose to their 
faces, which was probably rarefied spray from the blows 
of the sea upon the foot of the cliff. 

Elfride wished it could be a longer time ago that she 
had sat there with Stephen as her lover, and agreed to 
be his wife. The significant closeness of that time to 
the present was another item to add to the list of 
passionate fears which were chronic with her now. 

Yet Knight was very tender this evening, and sus- 
tained her close to him as they sat. 

Not a word had been uttered by either since sitting 
down, when Knight said musingly, looking still afar — 
c I wonder if any lovers in past years ever sat here 
with arms locked, as we do now. Probably they have, 
for the place seems formed for a seat/ 

Her recollection of a well-known pair who had, and 
the much-talked-of loss which had ensued therefrom, 
and how the young man had been sent back to look for 
the missing article, led Elfride to glance down to her 
side, and behind her back. Many people who lose a 
trinket involuntarily give a momentary look for it in 
passing the spot ever so long afterwards. They do not 
often find it. Elfride, in turning her head, saw some- 
thing shine weakly from a crevice in the rocky sedile. 
Only for a few minutes during the day did the sun light 
the alcove to its innermost rifts and slits, but these 
were the minutes now, and its level rays did Elfride 
the good or evil turn of revealing the lost ornament. 

Elfride’s thoughts instantly reverted to the words 
she had unintentionally uttered upon what had been 
going on when the earring was lost. And she was im- 
mediately seized with a misgiving that Knight, on see- 
ing the object, would be reminded of her words. Her 
instinctive act therefore was to secure it privately. 

It was so deep in the crack that Elfride could not 
pull it out with her hand, though she made several 
surreptitious trials. 


3 6 7 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


* What are you doing, Elfie ? ’ said Knight, noticing 
her attempts, and looking behind him likewise. 

She had relinquished the endeavour, but too late. 

Knight peered into the joint from which her hand 
had been withdrawn, and saw what she had seen. He 
instantly took a penknife from his pocket, and by dint 
of probing and scraping brought the earring out upon 
open ground. 

‘ It is not yours, surely ? ’ he inquired. 

‘ Yes, it is,’ she said quietly. 

‘ Well, that is a most extraordinary thing, that we 
should find it like this ! ’ Knight then remembered 
more circumstances ; ‘ What, is it the one you have 
told me of ? ’ 

‘ Yes.’ 

The unfortunate remark of hers at the kiss came 
into his mind, if eyes w r ere ever an index to be trusted. 
Trying to repress the words he yet spoke on the sub- 
ject, more to obtain assurance that what it had seemed 
to imply was not true than from a wish to pry into 
bygones. 

‘ Were you really engaged to be married to that 
lover ? ’ he said, looking straight forward at the sea 
again. 

‘Yes — but not exactly. Yet I think I was.’ 

‘ O Elfride, engaged to be married ! ’ he murmured. 

‘ It would have been called a — secret engagement, 
T suppose. But don’t look so disappointed; don’t 
Blame me.’ 

* No, no.’ 

‘ Why do you say “ No, no,” in such a way ? 
Sweetly enough, but so barely ? ’ 

Knight made no direct reply to this. * Elfride, I told 
you once,’ he said, following out his thoughts, ‘ that I 
never kissed a woman as a sweetheart until I kissed you. 
A kiss is not much, I suppose, and it happens to few 
young people to be able to avoid all blandishments and 
368 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


attentions except from the one they afterwards marry. 
But I have peculiar weaknesses, Elfride ; and because I 
have led a peculiar life, I must suffer for it, I suppose. 
I had hoped — well, what I had no right to hope in con- 
nection with you. You naturally granted your former 
lover the privileges you grant me.’ 

A 1 yes ’ came from her like the last sad whisper of a 
breeze. 

‘ And he used to kiss you — of course he did.* 

‘ Yes.’ 

‘ And perhaps you allowed him a more free manner 
in his love-making than I have shown in mine.’ 

* No, I did not.’ This was rather more alertly spoken. 

‘ But he adopted it without being allowed ? ’ 

‘ Yes.’ 

* How much I have made of you, Elfride, and how 
I have kept aloof ! * said Knight in deep and shaken 
tones. ‘ So many days and hours as I have hoped in 
you — I have feared to kiss you more than those two 
times. And he made no scruples to . . .’ 

She crept closer to him and trembled as if with cold. 
Her dread that the whole story, with random additions, 
would become known to him, caused her manner to be 
so agitated that Knight was alarmed and perplexed into 
stillness. The actual innocence which made her think 
so fearfully of what, as the world goes, was not a great 
matter, magnified her apparent guilt. It may have said 
to Knight that a woman who was so flurried in the 
preliminaries must have a dreaful sequel to her tale. 

* I know,’ continued Knight, with an indescribable 
drag of manner and intonation, — ‘ I know I am absurdly 
scrupulous about you — that I want you too exclusively 
mine. In your past before you knew me — from your 
very cradle — I wanted to think you had been mine. 
I would make you mine by main force. Elfride,’ he 
went on vehemently, 1 1 can’t help this jealousy over 
you ! It is my nature, and must be so, and I hate 

369 2 a 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


the fact that you have been caressed before: yes, 
hate it ! ’ 

She drew a long deep breath, which was half a sob. 
Knight’s face was hard, and he never looked at her 
at all, still fixing his gaze far out to sea, which the sun 
had now resigned to the shade. In high places it is 
not long from sunset to night, dusk being in a measure 
banished, and though only evening where they sat, it 
had been twilight in the valleys for half an hour. 
Upon the dull expanse of sea there gradually intensified 
itself into existence the gleam of a distant light-ship. 

‘ When that lover first kissed you, Elfride was it 
in such a place as this ? * 

* Yes, it was.’ 

* You don’t tell me anything but what I wring out 
of you. Why is that? Why have you suppressed all 
mention of this when casual confidences of mine should 
have suggested confidence in return? On board the 
Juliet , why were you so secret? It seems like being 
made a fool of, Elfride, to think that, when I was 
teaching you how desirable it was that we should have 
no secrets from each other, you were assenting in 
words, but in act contradicting me. Confidence would 
have been so much more promising for our happiness. 
If you had had confidence in me, and told me will- 
ingly, I should — be different. But you suppress every- 
thing, and I shall question you. Did you live at 
Endelstow at that time ? ’ 

‘ Yes,’ she said faintly. 

‘ Where were you when he first kissed you ? ’ 

* Sitting in this seat.’ 

* Ah, I thought so ! ’ said Knight, rising and facing 
her. 

1 And that accounts for everything — the exclamation 
which you explained deceitfully, and all ! Forgive the 
harsh word, Elfride — forgive it.’ He smiled a surface 
smile as he continued : ‘ What a poor mortal I am 
37o 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


to play second fiddle in everything and to be deluded 
by fibs ! * 

‘ Oh, don’t say it ; don’t, Harry ! ’ 

* Where did he kiss you besides here ? * 

* Sitting on — a tomb in the — churchyard — and other 
places,’ she answered with slow recklessness. 

* Never mind, never mind,’ he exclaimed, on seeing 
her tears and perturbation. ‘ I don’t want to grieve 
you. I don’t care.’ 

But Knight did care. 

‘ It makes no difference, you know,’ he continued, 
seeing she did not reply. 

‘ I feel cold, said Elfride. 1 Shall we go home ? ’ 

‘ Yes ; it is late in the year to sit long out of doors : 
we ought to be off this ledge before it gets too dark to let 
us see our footing. I daresay the horse is impatient.’ 

Knight spoke the merest commonplace to her now. 
He had hoped to the last moment that she would have 
volunteered the whole story of her first attachment. It 
grew more and more distasteful to him that she should 
have a secret of this nature. Such entire confidence as 
he had pictured as about to exist between himself and 
the innocent young wife who had known no lover’s tones 
save his — was this its beginning ? He lifted her upon 
the horse, and they went along constrainedly. The 
poison of suspicion was doing its work well. 

An incident occurred on this homeward journey 
which was long remembered by both, as adding shade 
to shadow. Knight could not keep from his mind the 
words of Adam’s reproach to Eve in Paradise Lost, and 
at last whispered them to himself — 

* Fool’d and beguiled : by him thou, I by thee ! ’ 

* What did you say ? ’ Elfride inquired timorously. 

* It was only a quotation.’ 

They had now dropped into a hollow, and the church 
tower made its appearance against the pale evening 
37i 





A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


sky, its lower part being hidden by some intervening 
trees. Elfride, being denied an answer, was looking 
at the tower and trying to think of some contrasting 
quotation she might use to regain his tenderness. 
After a little thought she said in winning tones — 

‘ “ Thou hast been my hope, and a strong tower for 
me against the enemy.” ’ 

They passed on. A few minutes later three or four 
birds were seen to fly out of the tower. 

‘The strong tower moves,’ said Knight, with sur- 
prise. 

A corner of the square mass swayed forward, sank, 
and vanished. A loud rumble followed, and a cloud 
of dust arose where all had previously been so clear. 

‘ The church restorers have done it ! ’ said Elfride. 

At this minute Mr. Swancourt was seen approach- 
ing them. He came up with a bustling demeanour, 
apparently much engrossed by some business in hand. 

‘ We have got the tower down ! ’ he exclaimed. 
* It came rather quicker than we intended it should. 
The first idea was to take it down stone by stone, 
you know. In doing this the crack widened consider- 
ably, and it was not believed safe for the men to stand 
upon the walls any longer. Then we decided to under- 
mine it, and three men set to work at the weakest corner 
this afternoon. They had left off for the evening, 
intending to give the final blow to-morrow morning, 
and had been home about half an hour, when down it 
came. A very successful job — a very fine job indeed. 
But he was a tough old fellow in spite of the crack.’ 
Here Mr. Swancourt wiped from his face the perspira- 
tion his excitement had caused him. 

‘ Poor old tower ! ’ said Elfride. 

‘ Yes, I am sorry for it,’ said Knight. * It was 
an interesting piece of antiquity — a local record of 
local art.’ 

‘Ah, but my dear sir, we shall have a new one/ 
372 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


expostulated Mr. Swancourt ; * a splendid tower — 

designed by a first-rate London man — in the newest 
style of Gothic art, and full of Christian feeling/ 

‘ Indeed ! ’ said Knight. 

‘ Oh yes. Not in the barbarous clumsy architecture 
of this neighbourhood ; you see nothing so rough and 
pagan anywhere else in England. When the men are 
gone, I would advise you to go and see the church 
before anything further is done to it. You can now 
sit in the chancel, and look down the nave through the 
west arch, and through that far out to sea. In fact/ 
said Mr. Swancourt significantly, ‘if a wedding were 
performed at the altar to-morrow morning, it might be 
witnessed from the deck of a ship on a voyage to the 
South Seas, with a good glass. However, after dinner, 
when the moon has risen, go up and see for yourselves/ 

Knight assented with feverish readiness. He had 
decided within the last few minutes that he could not 
rest another night without further talk with Elfride upon 
the subject which now divided them : he was determined 
to know all, and relieve his disquiet in some way. 
Elfride would gladly have escaped further converse 
alone with him that night, but it seemed inevitable. 

Just after moonrise they left the house. How little 
any expectation of the moonlight prospect — which was 
the ostensible reason of their pilgrimage — had to do 
with Knight’s real motive in getting the gentle girl again 
upon his arm, Elfride no less than himself well knew. 


XXXII 


* Had I wist before I lust.' 

It was now October, and the night air was chill. Aftev 
looking to see that she was well wrapped up, Knight 
took her along the hillside path they had ascended so 
many times in each other’s company, when doubt was a 
thing unknown. On reaching the church they found 
that one side of the tower was, as the vicar had stated, 
entirely removed, and lying in the shape of rubbish at 
their feet. The tower on its eastern side still was firm, 
and might have withstood the shock of storms and the 
siege of battering years for many a generation even now. 
They entered by the side-door, went eastward, and sat 
down by the altar-steps. 

The heavy arch spanning the junction of tower and 
nave formed to-night a black frame to a distant misty 
view, stretching far westward. Just outside the arch 
came the heap of fallen stones, then a portion of moon- 
lit churchyard, then the wide and convex sea behind. 
It was a coup-cCcril which had never been possible since 
the mediaeval masons first attached the old tower to 
the older church it dignified, and hence must be sup- 
posed to have had an interest apart from that of simple 
moonlight on ancient wall and sea and shore — any 
374 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


mention of which has by this time, it is to be feared, 
become one of the cuckoo-cries which are heard but 
not regarded. Rays of crimson, blue, and purple shone 
upon the twain from the east window behind them, 
wherein saints and angels vied with each other in 
primitive surroundings of landscape and sky, and threw 
upon the pavement at the sitters’ feet a softer repro- 
duction of the same translucent hues, amid which the 
shadows of the two living heads of Knight and Elfride 
were opaque and prominent blots. Presently the moon 
became covered by a cloud, and the iridescence died 
away. 

‘ There, it is gone ! ’ said Knight. ‘ I’ve been 
thinking, Elfride, that this place we sit on is where 
we may hope to kneel together soon. But I am restless 
and uneasy, and you know why.’ 

Before she replied the moonlight returned again, 
irradiating that portion of churchyard within their view. 
It brightened the near part first, and against the back- 
ground which the cloud-shadow had not yet uncovered 
stood, brightest of all, a white tomb — the tomb of young 
Jethway. 

Knight, still alive on the subject of Elfride’s secret, 
thought of her words concerning the kiss — that it one? 
had occurred on a tomb in this churchyard. 

‘ Elfride,’ he said, with a superficial archness which 
did not half cover an undercurrent of reproach, ‘do 
you know, I think you might have told me voluntarily 
about that past — of kisses and betrothing — without 
giving me so much uneasiness and trouble. Was that 
the tomb you alluded to as having sat on with him ? 1 

She waited an instant. ‘ Yes,’ she said. 

The correctness of his random shot startled Knight ; 
though, considering that almost all the other memorials 
in the churchyard were upright headstones upon which 
nobody could possibly sit, it was not so wonderful. 

Elfride did not even now go on with the explanation 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


her exacting lover wished to have, and her reticence 
began to irritate him as before. He was inclined to 
read her a lecture. 

‘ Why don’t you tell me all ? * he said somewhat 
indignantly. * Elfride, there is not a single subject 
upon which I feel more strongly than upon this — - 
that everything ought to be cleared up between two 
persons before they become husband and wife. See 
how desirable and wise such a course is, in order to 
avoid disagreeable contingencies in the form of dis- 
coveries afterwards. For, Elfride, a secret of no im- 
portance at all may be made the basis of some fatal 
\ misunderstanding only because it is discovered, and 
^ not confessed. They say there never was a couple of 
whom one had not some secret the other never knew 
or was intended to know. This may or may not be 
true ; but if it be true, some have been happy in spite 
rather than in consequence of it. If a man were to 
see another man looking significantly at his wife, and 
she were blushing crimson and appearing startled, do 
you think he would be so well satisfied with, for 
instance, her truthful explanation that once, to her 
great annoyance, she accidentally fainted into his arms, 
as if she had said it voluntarily long ago, before the 
circumstance occurred which forced it from her ? Sup- 
pose that admirer you spoke of in connection with the 
tomb yonder should turn up, and bother me. It would 
embitter our lives, if I were then half in the dark, as 
I am now ! 9 

Knight spoke the latter sentences with growing 
force. 

* It cannot be/ she said. 

‘ Why not ? 9 he asked sharply. 

Elfride was distressed to find him in so stern a 
mood, and she trembled. In a confusion of ideas, 
probably not intending a wilful prevarication, she 
answered hurriedly — 


376 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


: If he’s dead, how can you meet him ? ’ 

4 Is he dead ? Oh, that’s different altogether ! ’ said 
Knight, immensely relieved. ‘ But, let me see — what 
did you say about that tomb and him ? ’ 

‘ That’s his tomb,’ she continued faintly. 

‘ What ! was he who lies buried there the man who 
was your lover ? ’ Knight asked in a distinct voice. 

* Yes ; and I didn’t love him or encourage him.’ 

‘ But you let him kiss you — you said so, you know, 
Elfride.’ 

She made no reply. 

‘Why,’ said Knight, recollecting circumstances by 
degrees, ‘you surely said you were in some degree 
engaged to him — and of course you were if he kissed 
you. And now you say you never encouraged him. 
And I have been fancying you said — I am almost sure 
you did — that you were sitting with him on that tomb. 
Good God ! ’ he cried, suddenly starting up in anger, 
‘ are you telling me untruths ? Why should you play 
with me like this ? I’ll have the right of it. Elfride, 
we shall never be happy ! There’s a blight upon us, or 
me, or you, and it must be cleared off before we marry.’ 
Knight moved away impetuously as if to leave her. 

She jumped up and clutched his arm. 

‘ Don’t go, Harry — don’t ! 

‘Tell me, then,’ said Knight sternly. ‘And re- 
member this, no more fibs, or, upon my soul, I shall 
hate you. Heavens ! that I should come to this, to be 
made a fool of by a girl’s untruths ’ 

‘ Don’t, don’t treat me so cruelly ! O Harry, Harry, 
have pity, and withdraw those dreadful words ! I am 
truthful by nature — I am — and I don’t know how I 
came to make you misunderstand ! But I was 
frightened ! ” She quivered so in her perturbation that 
she shook him with her. 

‘ Did you say you were sitting on that tomb ? ’ he 
asked moodily. 


2 B 


377 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


* Yes ; and it was true.’ 

‘ Then how, in the name of Heaven, can a man sit 
upon his own tomb ? ’ 

* That was another man. Forgive me, Harry, won’t 
you?’ 

‘ What, a lover in the tomb and a lover on it ? ’ 

* Oh — Oh — yes ! ’ 

‘ Then there were two before me ? ’ 

• 1 — suppose so.’ 

* Now, don’t be a silly woman with your supposing 
— I hate all that,’ said Knight contemptuously almost. 
• Well, we learn strange things. I don’t know what I 
might have done — no man can say into what shape 
circumstances may warp him — but I hardly think I 
should have had the conscience to accept the favours 
of a new lover whilst sitting over the poor remains of 
the old one; upon my soul, I don’t.’ Knight, in 
moody meditation, continued looking towards the tomb, 
which stood staring them in the face like an avenging 
ghost. 

‘ But you wrong me : — Oh, so grievously ! ” she cried. 
‘ I did not meditate any such thing : believe me, Harry, 
I did not. It only happened so — quite of itself.’ 

* Well, I suppose you didn’t intend such a thing,’ he 
said. ‘ Nobody ever does,’ he sadly continued. 

* And him in the grave I never once loved.’ 

* I suppose the second lover and you, as you sat 
there, vowed to be faithful to each other for ever ? ’ 

Elfride only replied by quick heavy breaths, showing 
she was on the brink of a sob. 

* You don’t choose to be anything but reserved, 
then ? ’ he said imperatively. 

* Of course we did,’ she responded. 

* “ Of course ! ” You seem to treat the subject very 
lightly ? ’ 

* It is past, and is nothing to us now.’ 

•Elfride, it is a nothing which, though it may make 
378 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


a careless man laugh, cannot but make a genuine one 
grieve. It is a very gnawing pain. Tell me straight 
through — all of it.’ 

* Never. O Harry ! how can you expect it when so 
little of it makes you so harsh with me ? ’ 

‘ Now, Elfride, listen to this. You know that what 
you have told only jars the subtler fancies in one, after 
all. The feeling I have about it would be called, and 
is, mere sentimentality; and I don't want you to 
suppose that an ordinary previous engagement of a 
straightforward kind would make any practical difference 
in my love, or my wish to make you my wife. But you 
seem to have more to tell, and that’s where the wrong 
is. Is there more ? ’ 

‘ Not much more,’ she wearily answered. 

Knight preserved a grave silence for a minute. 
“‘Not much more,” ’ he said at last. ‘ I should think 
not, indeed ! 7 His voice assumed a low and steady 
pitch. * Elfride, you must not mind my saying a 
strange-sounding thing, for say it I shall. It is this : 
that if there were much more to add to an account 
which already includes all the particulars that a broken 
marriage engagement could possibly include with pro- 
priety, it must be some exceptional thing which might 
make it impossible for me or any one else to love you 
and marry you 7 

Knight’s disturbed mood led him much further than 
he would have gone in a quieter moment. And, even 
as it was, had she been assertive to any degree he would 
not have been so peremptory; and had she been a 
stronger character — more practical and less imaginative — 
she would have made more use of her position in his 
heart to influence him. But the confiding tenderness 
which had won him is ever accompanied by a sort of 
self-committal to the stream of events, leading every 
such woman to trust more to the kindness of fate for 
good results than to any argument of her own. 

379 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 

e Well, well,’ he murmured cynically ; ‘ I won’t say 
it is your fault : it is my ill-luck, I suppose. I had no 
real right to question you — everybody would say it was 
presuming. But when we have misunderstood, we feel 
injured by the subject of our misunderstanding. You 
never said you had had nobody else here making love 
to you, so why should I blame you ? Elfride, I beg 
your pardon.’ 

‘ No, no ! I would rather have your anger than 
that cool aggrieved politeness. Do drop that, Harry ! 
Why should you inflict that upon me ? It reduces me 
to the level of a mere acquaintance.’ 

‘You do that with me. Why not confidence for 
confidence ? ’ 

‘ Yes ; but I didn’t ask you a single question with 
regard to your past : I didn’t wish to know about it. 
All I cared for was that, wherever you came from, what- 
ever you had done, whoever you had loved, you were 
mine at last. Harry, if originally you had known I had 
loved, would you never have cared for me ? ’ 

£ I won’t quite say that. Though I own that the 
idea of your inexperienced state had a great charm for 
me. But I think this : that if I had known there was 
any phase of your past love you would refuse to reveal 
if I asked to know it, I should never have loved you.’ 

Elfride sobbed bitterly. ‘ Am I such a — mere char- 
acterless toy — as to have no attrac — tion in me, apart 
from — freshness? Haven’t I brains? You said — I 
was clever and ingenious in my thoughts, and — -isn’t 
that anything ? Have I not some beauty ? I think I 
have a little — and I know I have — yes, I do ! You 
have praised my voice, and my manner, and my accom- 
plishments. Yet all these together are so much rubbish 
because I — accidentally saw a man before you ! ’ 

* Oh, come, Elfride. “ Accidentally saw a man ” is 
very cool. You loved him, remember.’ 

— ‘ And loved him a little ! ’ 

380 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


* And refuse now to answer the simple question how 
it ended. Do you refuse still, Elfride ? ’ 

‘You have no right to question me so — you said so. 

It is unfair. Trust me as I trust you.’ 

‘ That’s not at all.’ 

‘ I shall not love you if you are so cruel. It is cruel 
to me to argue like this.’ 

‘ Perhaps it is. Yes, it is. I was carried away by 
my feeling for you. Heaven knows that I didn’t mean 
to; but I have loved you so that I have used you 
badly.’ 

* I don’t mind it, Harry ! ’ she instantly answered, 
creeping up and nestling against him ; ‘ and I will not 
think at all that you used me harshly if you will forgive 
me, and not be vexed with me any more ? I do wish I 
had been exactly as you thought I was, but I could not 
help it, you know. If I had only known you had 
been coming, what a nunnery I would have lived in to 
have been good enough for you ! ’ 

‘ Well, never mind,’ said Knight ; and he turned to 
go. He endeavoured to speak sportively as they went 
on. e Diogenes Laertius says that philosophers used 
voluntarily to deprive themselves of sight to be uninter- 
rupted in their meditations. Men, becoming lovers, 
ought to do the same thing.’ 

‘Why? — but never mind — I don’t want to know. 
Don’t speak laconically to me,’ she said with depreca- 
tion. 

‘ Why ? Because they would never then be dis- 
tracted by discovering their idol was second-hand.’ 

She looked down and sighed; and they passed out 
of the crumbling old place, and slowly crossed to the 
churchyard entrance. Knight was not himself, and he 
could not pretend to be. She had not told all. 

He supported her lightly over the stile, and was s' 
practically as attentive as a lover could be. But there ^ 
had passed away a glory, and the dream was not as 
381 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


it had been of yore. Perhaps Knight was not shaped 
by Nature for a marrying man. Perhaps his lifelong 
constraint towards women, which he had attributed 
to accident, was not chance after all, but the natural 
result of instinctive acts so minute as to be undis- 
cernible even by himself. Or whether the rough dis- 
pelling of any bright illusion, however imaginative, 
depreciates the real and unexaggerated brightness which 
appertains to its basis, one cannot say. Certain it was 
that Knight’s disappointment at finding himself second 
or third in the field, at Elfride’s momentary equivoque, 
and at her reluctance to be candid, brought him to the 
verge of cynicism. 


XXXIII 


'O daughter of Babylon, wasted with misery. 1 

A HABIT of Knight’s, when not immediately occupied 
with Elfride — to walk by himself for half an hour or so 
between dinner and bedtime — had become familiar to 
his friends at Endelstow, Elfride herself among them. 
When he had helped her over the stile, she said gently, 
‘ If you wish to take your usual turn on the hill, Harry, 
I can run down to the house alone/ 

‘ Thank you, Elfie ; then I think I will.’ 

Her form diminished to blackness in the moonlight, 
and Knight, after remaining upon the churchyard stile 
a few minutes longer, turned back again towards the 
building. His usual course was now to light a cigar or 
pipe, and indulge in a quiet meditation. But to-night 
his mind was too tense to bethink itself of such a solace. 
He merely walked round to the site of the fallen tower, 
and sat himself down upon some of the large stones 
which had composed it until this day, when the chain 
of circumstance originated by Stephen Smith, while in 
the employ of Mr. Hewby, the London man of art, had 
brought about its overthrow. 

Pondering on the possible episodes of Elfride’s past 
life, and on how he had supposed her to have had no 

383 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


past justifying the name, he sat and regarded the white 
tomb of young Jethway, now close in front of him. The 
sea, though comparatively placid, could as usual be 
heard from this point along the whole distance between 
promontories to the right and left, floundering and 
entangling itself among the insulated stacks of rock 
which dotted the water’s edge — the miserable skeletons 
of tortured old cliffs that would not even yet succumb 
to the wear and tear of the tides. 

As a change from thoughts not of a very cheerful 
kind, Knight attempted exertion. He stood up, and 
prepared to ascend to the summit of the ruinous heap 
of stones, from which a more extended outlook was 
obtainable than from the ground. He stretched out 
his arm to seize the projecting arris of a larger block 
than ordinary, and so help himself up, when his hand 
lighted plump upon a substance differing in the greatest 
possible degree from what he had expected to seize — 
hard stone. It was stringy and entangled, and trailed 
upon the stone. The deep shadow from the aisle wall 
prevented his seeing anything here distinctly, and he 
began guessing as a necessity. ‘ It is a tressy species 
of mosS or lichen,’ he said to himself. 

But it lay loosely over the stone. 

* It is a tuft of grass,’ he said. 

But it lacked the roughness and humidity of the 
finest glass. 

‘ It is a mason’s whitewash-brush.’ 

Such brushes, he remembered, were more bristly; 
and however much used in repairing a structure, would 
not be required in pulling one down. 

He said, ‘ It must be a thready silk fringe.’ 

He felt further in. It was somewhat warm. Knight 
instantly felt somewhat cold. 

To find the coldness of inanimate matter where you 
expect warmth is startling enough; but a colder tempera- 
ture than that of the body being rather the rule than 

384 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


the exception in common substances, it hardly conveys 
such a shock to the system as finding warmth where 
utter frigidity is anticipated. 

‘ God only knows what it is,’ he said. 

He felt further, and in the course of a minute put 
his hand upon a human head. The head was warm, 
but motionless. The thready mass was the hair of the 
head — long and straggling, showing that the head was 
a woman’s. 

Knight in his perplexity stood still for a moment, 
and collected his thoughts. The vicar’s account of the 
fall of the tower was that the workmen had been 
undermining it all the day, and had left in the evening 
intending to give the finishing stroke the next morning. 
Half an hour after they had gone the undermined angle 
came down. The woman who was half buried, as it 
seemed, must have been beneath it at the moment of 
the fall. 

Knight leapt up and began endeavouring to remove 
the rubbish with his hands. The heap overlying the 
body was for the most part fine and dusty, but in 
immense quantity. It would be a saving of time to 
run for assistance. He crossed to the churchyard wall, 
and hastened down the hill. 

A little way dpwn an intersecting road passed over 
a small ridge, which now showed up darkly against the 
moon, and this road here formed a kind of notch in 
the sky-line. At the moment that Knight arrived at 
the crossing he beheld a man on this eminence, com- 
ing towards him. Knight turned aside and met the 
stranger. 

‘ There has been an accident at the church,’ said 
Knight, without preface. ‘The tower has fallen on 
somebody, who has been lying there ever since. Will 
you come and help ? ’ 

‘ That I will,’ said the man. 

‘ It is a woman,’ said Knight, as they hurried back, 

385 2 B 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


‘ and I think we two are enough to extricate her. Do 
you know of a shovel ? ’ 

‘The grave-digging shovels are about somewhere. 
They used to stay in the tower.’ 

‘ And there must be some belonging to the workmen.’ 

They searched about, and in an angle of the porch 
found three carefully stowed away. Going round to 
the west end Knight signified the spot of the tragedy. 

* We ought to have brought a lantern,’ he exclaimed. 
‘ But we may be able to do without.’ He set to work 
removing the superincumbent mass. 

The other man, who looked on somewhat helplessly 
at first, now followed the example of Knight’s activity, 
and removed the larger stones which were mingled with 
the rubbish. But with all their efforts it was quite ten 
minutes before the body of the unfortunate creature 
could be extricated. They lifted her as carefully as 
they could, breathlessly carried her to Felix Jethway’s 
tomb, which was only a few steps westward, and laid 
her thereon. 

‘ Is she dead indeed ? ’ said the stranger. 

‘ She appears to be,’ said Knight. ‘ Which is the 
nearest house ? The vicarage, I suppose.’ 

‘ Yes ; but since we shall have to call a surgeon from 
Castle Boterel, I think it would be better to carry her 
in that direction, instead of away from the town.’ 

‘ And is it not much further to the first house we 
come to going that way, than to the vicarage or to The 
Crags ? ’ 

‘ Not much,’ the stranger replied. 

‘ Suppose we take her there, then. And I think the 
best way to do it would be thus, if you don’t mind 
joining hands with me.’ 

‘Not in the least ; I am glad to assist.’ 

Making a kind of cradle, by clasping their hands 
crosswise under the inanimate woman, they lifted her, 
and walked on side by side down a path indicated by 
386 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


the stranger, who appeared to know the locality 
well. 

‘ I had been sitting in the church for nearly an 
hour,’ Knight resumed, when they were out of the 
churchyard. ‘ Afterwards I walked round to the site of 
the fallen tower, and so found her. It is painful to 
think I unconsciously wasted so much time in the very 
presence of a perishing, flying soul.’ 

‘ The tower fell at dusk, did it not ? quite two hours 
ago, I think ? * 

‘ Yes. She must have been there alone. What 
could have been her object in visiting the church- 
yard then ? 

‘ It is difficult to say.’ The stranger looked inquir- 
ingly into the reclining face of the motionless form they 
bore. ‘ Would you turn her round for a moment, so 
that the light shines on her face ? ’ he said. 

They turned her face to the moon, and the man 
looked closer into her features. ‘ Why, I know her ! ’ 
he exclaimed. 

* Who is she ? ’ 

‘ Mrs. Jethway. And the cottage we are taking her 
to is her own. She is a widow ; and I was speaking 
to her only this afternoon. I was at Castle Boterel 
post-office, and she came there to post a letter. Poor 
soul ! Let us hurry on.’ 

‘ Hold my wrist a little tighter. Was not that tomb 
we laid her on the tomb of her only son ? * 

‘Yes, it was. Yes, I see it now. She was there to 
visit the tomb. Since the death of that son she has 
been a desolate, desponding woman, always bewailing 
him. She was a farmer’s wife, very well educated — a 
governess originally, I believe.’ 

Knight’s heart was moved to sympathy. His own 
fortunes seemed in some strange way to be interwoven 
with those of this Jethway family, through the influ- 
ence of Elfride over himself and the unfortunate son 
387 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


of that house. He made no reply, and they still 
walked on. . 

‘ She begins to feel heavy,’ said the stranger, breaking 
the silence. 

‘Yes, she does,’ said Knight; and after another 
pause added, ‘ I think I have met you before, though 
where I cannot recollect. May I ask who you are ? ’ 

‘ Oh yes. I am Lord Luxellian. Who are you ? ’ 

‘ I am a visitor at The Crags — Mr. Knight.’ 

‘ I have heard of you, Mr. Knight.’ 

‘ And I of you, Lord Luxellian. I am glad to meet 
you.’ 

* I may say the same. I am familiar with your name 
in print.’ 

‘ And I with yours. Is this the house ? ’ 

‘Yes.’ 

The door was locked. Knight, reflecting a moment, 
searched the pocket of the lifeless woman, and found 
therein a large key which, on being applied to the door, 
opened it easily. The fire was out, but the moonlight 
entered the quarried window, and made patterns upon 
the floor. The rays enabled them to see that the room 
into which they had entered was pretty well furnished, 
it being the same room that Elfride had visited . alone 
two or three evenings earlier. They deposited their 
still burden on an old-fashioned couch which stood 
against the wall, and Knight searched about for a lamp 
or candle. He found a candle on a shelf, lighted it, 
and placed it on the table. 

Both Knight and Lord Luxellian examined the pale 
countenance attentively, and both were nearly con- 
vinced that there was no hope. No marks of violence 
were visible in the casual examination they made. 

‘ I think that as I know where Doctor Granson 
lives,’ said Lord Luxellian, ‘ I had better run for him 
whilst you stay here.’ 

Knight agreed to this. Lord Luxellian then went 

388 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


off, and his hurrying footsteps died away. Knight 
continued bending over the body, and a few minutes 
longer of careful scrutiny perfectly satisfied him that 
the woman was far beyond the reach of the lancet and 
the drug. Her extremities were already beginning to 
get stiff and cold. Knight covered her face, and 
sat down. 

The minutes went by. The essayist remained 
musing on all the occurrences of the night. His eyes 
were directed upon the table, and he had seen for some 
time that writing-materials were spread upon it. He 
now noticed these more particularly : there were an 
inkstand, pen, blotting-book, and note-paper. Several 
sheets of paper were thrust aside from the rest, upon 
which letters had been begun and relinquished, as if 
their form had not been satisfactory to the writer. 
A stick of black sealing-wax and seal were there too, as 
if the ordinary fastening had not been considered suffh 
ciently secure. The abandoned sheets of paper lying 
as they did open upon the table, made it possible, as 
he sat, to read the few words written on each. One 
ran thus : 

‘ Sir, — As a woman who was once blest with a dear 
son of her own, I implore you to accept a warning ’ 

Another : 

‘ Sir, — I f you will deign to receive warning from a 
stranger before it is too late to alter your course, listen 


The third : 

* Sir, — With this letter I enclose to you another 
which, unaided by any explanation from me, tells a 
startling tale. I wish, however, to add a few words to 
make your delusion yet more clear to you ’ 

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It was plain that, after these renounced beginnings, 
a fourth letter had been written and despatched, which 
had been deemed a proper one. Upon the table were 
two drops of sealing-wax, the stick from which they 
were taken having been laid down overhanging the edge 
of the table ; the end of it drooped, showing that the 
wax was placed there whilst warm. There was the 
chair in which the writer had sat, the impression of the 
letter’s address upon the blotting-paper, and the poor 
widow who had caused these results lying dead hard by. 
Knight had seen enough to lead him to the conclusion 
that Mrs. Jethway, having matter of great importance to 
communicate to some friend or acquaintance, had written 
him a very careful letter, and gone herself to post it ; 
that she had not returned to the house from that time 
of leaving it till Lord Luxellian and himself had brought 
her back dead. 

The unutterable melancholy of the whole scene, as 
he waited on, silent and alone, did not altogether clash 
with the mood of Knight, even though he was the 
affianced of a fair and winning girl, and though so lately 
he had been in her company. Whilst sitting on the 
remains of the demolished tower he had defined a new 
sensation ; that the lengthened course of inaction he 
had lately been indulging in on Elfride’s account might 
probably not be good for him as a man who had work 
to do. It could quickly be put an end to by hastening 
on his marriage with her. 

Knight, in his own opinion, was one who had missed 
his mark by excessive aiming. Having now, to a great 
extent, given up ideal ambitions, he wished earnestly to 
direct his powers into a more practical channel, and 
thus correct the introspective tendencies which had 
never brought himself much happiness, or done his 
fellow-creatures any great good. To make a start in 
this new direction by marriage, which, since knowing 
Elfride, had been so entrancing an idea, was less ex- 
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quisite to-night. That the curtailment of his illusion 
regarding her had something to do with the reaction, 
and with the return of his old sentiments on wasting 
time, is more than probable. Though Knight’s heart 
had so greatly mastered him, the mastery was not so 
complete as to be easily maintained in the face of a 
moderate intellectual revival. 

His reverie was broken by the sound of wheels, and 
a horse’s tramp. The door opened to admit the 
surgeon, Lord Luxellian, and a Mr. Code, coroner for 
the division (who had been attending at Castle Boterel 
that very day, and was having an after-dinner chat with 
the doctor when Lord Luxellian arrived); next came 
two female nurses and some idlers. 

Mr. Granson, after a cursory examination, pro- 
nounced the woman dead from suffocation, induced by 
intense pressure on the respiratory organs ; and arrange- 
ments were made that the inquiry should take place on 
the following morning, before the return of the coroner 
to St. Launce’s. 

Shortly afterwards the house of the widow was de- 
serted by all its living occupants, and she abode in 
death, as she had in her life during the past two years, 
entirely alone. • 


XXXIV 


‘ Yea, happy shall he be that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us.’ 

SIXTEEN hours had passed. Knight was entering 
the ladies’ boudoir at The Crags, upon his return 
from attending the inquest touching the death of Mrs. 
Jethway. Elfride was not in the apartment. 

Mrs. Swancourt made a few inquiries concerning the 
verdict and collateral circumstances. Then she said — 

‘ The postman came this morning the minute after 
you left the house. There was only one letter for you, 
and I have it here.’ 

She took a letter from, the lid of her workbox, and 
handed it to him. Knight took the missive abstractedly, 
but struck by its appearance murmured a few words 
and left the room. 

The letter was fastened with a black seal, and the 
handwriting in which it was addressed had lain under 
his eyes, long and prominently, only the evening 
before. 

Knight was greatly agitated, and looked about for 
a spot where he might be secure from interruption. 
It was the season of heavy dews, which lay on the 
herbage in shady places all the day long ; nevertheless, 
he entered a small patch of neglected grass-plat enclosed 
39 2 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


by the shrubbery, and there perused the letter, which 
he had opened on his way thither. 

The handwriting, the seal, the paper, the introductory 
words, all had told on the instant that the letter had 
come to him from the hands of the widow Jethway, now 
dead and cold. He had instantly understood that the 
unfinished notes which caught his eye yesternight were 
intended for nobody but himself. He had remembered 
some of the words of Elfride in her sleep on the steamer, 
that somebody was not to tell him of something, or it 
would be her ruin — a circumstance hitherto deemed so 
trivial and meaningless that he had well-nigh forgotten 
it All these things infused into him an emotion intense 
in power and supremely distressing in quality. The 
paper in his hand quivered as he read : 

• 

' The Valley, Endelstow. 

‘Sir,— A woman who has not much in the world 
to lose by any censure this act may bring upon her, 
wishes to give you some hints concerning a lady you 
love. If you will deign to accept a warning before it 
is too late, you will notice what your correspondent 
has to say. 

‘ You are deceived. Can such a woman as this be 
worthy ? 

‘ One who encouraged an honest youth to love her, 
then slighted him, so that he died. 

‘ One who next took a man of no birth as a lover, 
who was forbidden the house by her father. 

‘ One who secretly left her home to be married to 
that man, met him, and went with him to London. 

‘ One who, for some reason or other, returned again 
unmarried. 

‘ One who, in her after-correspondence with him, 
went so far as to address him as her husband. 

« One who wrote the enclosed letter to ask me, who 

ac 393 


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better than anybody else knows the story, to keep the 
scandal a secret. 

‘ I hope soon to be beyond the reach of either blame 
or praise. But before removing me God has put it in 
my power to avenge the death of my son. 

‘Gertrude Jethway.’ 

The letter enclosed was the note in pencil that 
Elfride had written in Mrs. Jethway’ s cottage : 

‘ Dear Mrs. Jethway, — I have been to visit you. 
I wanted much to see you, but I cannot wait any 
longer. I came to beg you not to execute the threats 
you have repeated to me. Do not, I beseech you, Mrs. 
Jethway, let any one know I ran away from home! It 
would ruin me with him, and break my heart. I will 
do anything for you, if 3>ou will be kind to me. In 
the name of our common womanhood, do not, I implore 
you, make a scandal of me. — Yours, 

‘E. Swancourt.’ 

Knight turned his head wearily towards the house. 
The ground rose rapidly on nearing the shrubbery in 
which he stood, raising it almost to a level with the 
first floor of The Crags. Elfride’s dressing-room lay in 
the salient angle in this direction, and it was lighted by 
two windows in such a position that, from Knight’s 
standing-place, his sight passed through both windows, 
and raked the room. Elfride was there ; she was 
pausing between the two windows, looking at her figure 
in the cheval-glass. She regarded herself long and 
attentively in front; turned, flung back her head, and 
observed the reflection over her shoulder. 

Nobody can predicate as to her object or fancy; she 
may have done the deed in the very abstraction of deep 
sadness. She may have been moaning from the bottom 
of her heart, ‘ How unhappy am I ! * But the im- 
pression produced on Knight was not a good one. He 
394 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


dropped his eyes moodily. The dead woman’s letter 
had a virtue in the accident of its juncture far beyond 
any it intrinsically exhibited. Circumstance lent to 
evil words a ring of pitiless justice echoing from the 
grave. Knight could not endure their possession. He 
tore the letter into fragments. 

He heard a brushing among the bushes behind, and 
turning his head he saw Elfride following him. The 
fair girl looked in his face with a wistful smile of hope, 
too forcedly hopeful to displace the firmly established 
dread beneath it. His severe words of the previous 
night still sat heavy upon her. 

‘ I saw you from my window, Harry,’ she said timidly. 

‘ The dew will make your feet wet,’ he observed, as 
one deaf. 

‘ I don’t mind it.’ 

‘ There is danger in getting wet feet.’ 

‘Yes . . . Harry, what is the matter?’ 

‘ Oh, nothing. Shall I resume the serious conversa- 
tion I had with you last night? No, perhaps not; 
perhaps I had better not.’ 

‘ Oh, I cannot tell ! How wretched it all is ! Ah, 
I wish you were your own dear self again, and had 
kissed me when I came up ! Why didn’t you ask me 
for one ? why don’t you now ? ’ 

‘ Too free in manner by half,’ he heard murmur the 
voice within him. 

‘ It was that hateful conversation last night,’ she 
went on. ‘ Oh, those words ! Last night was a black 
night for me.’ 

‘ Kiss ! — I hate that word ! Don’t talk of kissing, 
for God’s sake ! I should think you might with advan- 
tage have shown tact enough to keep back that word 
“ kiss,” considering those you have accepted.’ 

She became very pale, and a rigid and desolate 
charactery took possession of her face. That face was 
so delicate and tender in appearance now, that one 
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A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


could fancy the pressure of a finger upon it would 
cause a livid spot. 

Knight walked on, and Elfride with him, silent and 
unopposing. He opened a gate, and they entered a 
path across a stubble-field. 

‘ Perhaps I intrude upon you ? ’ she said as he 
closed the gate. ‘ Shall I go away ? ’ 

‘ No. Listen to me, Elfride.’ Knight’s voice was 
low and unequal. ‘ I have been honest with you : will 
you be so with me ? If any — strange — connection has 
existed between yourself and a predecessor of mine, tell 
it now. It is better that I know it now, even though 
the knowledge should part us, than that I should 
discover it in time to come. And suspicions have 
been awakened in me. I think I will not say how, be- 
cause I despise the means. A discovery of any mystery 
of your past would embitter our lives.’ 

Knight waited with a slow manner of calmness. 
His eyes were sad and imperative. They went farther 
along the path. 

‘ Will you forgive me if I tell you all ? ’ she ex- 
claimed entreatingly. 

1 1 can’t promise ; so much depends upon what you 
have to tell.’ 

Elfride could not endure the silence which followed. 

‘ Are you not going to love me ? ’ she burst out. 
‘Harry, Harry, love me, and speak as usual! Do; I 
beseech you, Harry ! ’ 

‘ Are you going to act fairly by me ? ’ said Knight, 
with rising anger ; ‘ or are you not ? What have I 
done to you that I should be put off like this ? Be 
caught like a bird in a springe ; everything intended to 
be hidden from me ! Why is it, Elfride ? That’s what 
I ask you.’ 

In their agitation they had left the path, and were 
wandering among the wet and obstructive stubble, with- 
out knowing or heeding it. 

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A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


‘ What have / done ? ’ she faltered. 

‘ What ? How can you ask what, when you know 
so well? You know that I have designedly been kept 
in ignorance of something attaching to you, which, had 
I known of it, might have altered all my conduct ; and 
yet you say, what ? ’ 

She drooped visibly, and made no answer. 

‘ Not that I believe in malicious letter-writers and 
whisperers ; not I. I don’t know whether I do or don’t : 
upon my soul, I can’t tell. I know this : a religion 
was building itself upon you in my heart. I looked 
into your eyes, and thought I saw there truth and 
innocence as pure and perfect as ever embodied by 
God in the flesh of woman. Perfect truth is too much 
to expect, but ordinary truth I will have or nothing at 
all. Just say, then; is the matter you keep back of the 
gravest importance, or is it not ? ’ 

‘ I don’t understand all your meaning. If I have 
hidden anything from you, it has been because I loved 
you so, and I feared — feared — to lose you.’ 

‘ Since you are not given to confidence, I want to ask 
you some plain questions. Have I your permission? ’ 

‘Yes,’ she said, and there came over her face a 
weary resignation. ‘ Say the harshest words you can ; I 
will bear them ! ’ 

‘ There is a scandal in the air concerning you, 
Elfride ; and I cannot even combat it without knowing 
definitely what it is. It may not refer to you entirely, 
or even at all.’ Knight trifled in the very bitterness of 
his feeling. ‘ In the time of the French Revolution, 
Pariseau, a ballet-master, was beheaded by mistake for 
Parisot, a captain of the King’s Guard. I wish there 
was another “ E. Swancourt ” in the neighbourhood. 
Look at this.’ 

He handed her the letter she had written and left 
on the table at Mrs. Jethway’s. She looked over it 
vacantly. 


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A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


* It is not so much as it seems ! ’ she pleaded. ‘ It 
seems wickedly deceptive to look at now, but it had a 
much more natural origin than you think. My sole 
wish was not to endanger our love. O Harry 1 that 
was all my idea. It was not much harm.’ 

‘ Yes, yes ; but independently of the poor miser- 
able creature’s remarks, it seems to imply — something 
wrong.’ 

‘ What remarks ? ’ 

‘ Those she wrote me — now torn to pieces. Elfride, 
did you run away with a man you loved ? — that was the 
damnable statement. Has such an accusation life in it 
— really, truly, Elfride ? ’ 

‘ Yes,’ she whispered. 

Knight’s countenance sank. ‘To be married to 
him ? ’ came huskily from his lips. 

‘Yes. Oh, forgive me! I had never seen you, 
Harry.’ 

* To London ? ’ 

‘Yes; but I ’ 

‘Answer my questions; say nothing else, Elfride 
Did you ever deliberately try to marry him in secret ? ’ 

‘ No ; not deliberately.’ 

‘ But did you do it ? ’ 

A feeble red passed over her face. 

‘ Yes,’ she said. 

‘ And after that — did you — write to him as your hus- 
band ; and did he address you as his wife ? ’ 

‘ Listen, listen ! It was ’ 

‘ Do answer me ; only answer me ! ’ 

‘ Then, yes, we did.’ Her lips shook ; but it was 
with some little dignity that she continued : ‘ I would 
gladly have told you ; for I knew and know I had done 
wrong. But I dared not; I loved you too well. Oh, 
so well ! You have been everything in the world to me 
— and you are now. Will you not forgive me f 

It is a melancholy thought, that men who at first 
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A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


will not allow the verdict of perfection they pronounce 
upon their sweethearts or wives to be disturbed by 
God’s own testimony to the contrary, will, once suspect- 
ing their purity, morally hang them upon evidence they 
would be ashamed to admit in judging a dog. 

The reluctance to tell, which arose from Elfride’s 
simplicity in thinking herself so much more culpable 
than she really was, had been doing fatal work in 
Knight’s mind. The man of many ideas, now that his 
first dream of impossible things was over, vibrated too 
far in the contrary direction ; and her every movement 
of feature — every tremor — every confused word — was 
taken as so much proof of her unworthiness. 

4 Elfride, we must bid good-bye to compliment,’ said 
Knight : 4 we must do without politeness now. Look 
in my face, and as you believe in God above, tell me 
truly one thing more. Were you away alone with him?’ 

‘ Yes.’ 

4 Did you return home the same day on which you 
left it ? ’ 

4 No.’ 

The word fell like a bolt, and the very land and sky 
seemed to suffer. Knight turned aside. Meantime 
Elfride’s countenance wore a look indicating utter 
despair of being able to explain matters so that they 
would seem no more than they really were, — a despair 
which not only relinquishes the hope of direct expla- 
nation, but wearily gives up all collateral chances of 
extenuation. 

The scene was engraved for years on the retina of 
Knight’s eye : the dead and brown stubble, the weeds 
among it, the distant belt of beeches shutting out the 
view of the house, the leaves of which were now red and 
sick to death. 

4 You must forget me,’ he said. 4 We shall not 
marry, Elfride.’ 

How much anguish passed into her soul at those 

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A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 

words from him was told by the look of supreme torture 
she wore. 

‘What meaning have you, Harry? You only say 
so, do you ? ’ 

She looked doubtingly up at him, and tried to laugh, 
as if the unreality of his words must be unquestionable. 

‘ You are not in earnest, I know — I hope you are 
not? Surely I belong to you, and you are going to 
keep me for yours ? ’ 

‘ Elfride, I have been speaking too roughly to you ; 
I have said what I ought only to have thought. I like 
you; and let me give you a word of advice. Marry 
your man as soon as you can. However weary of each 
other you may feel, you belong to each other, and I am 
not going to step between you. Do you think I would 
* — do you think I could for a moment ? If you cannot 
marry him now, and another makes you his wife, do not 
reveal this secret to him after marriage, if you do not 
before. Honesty would be damnation then.’ 

Bewildered by his expressions, she exclaimed — 

‘No, no ; I will not be a wife unless I am yours ; 
and I must be yours ! ’ 

‘ If we had married ’ 

‘ But you don’t mean — that — that — you will go away 
and leave me, and not be anything more to me — oh, 
you don’t ! ’ 

Convulsive sobs took all nerve out of her utter- 
ance. She checked them, and continued to look in his 
face for the ray of hope that was not to be found there. 

‘ I am going indoors,’ said Knight. ‘ You will not 
follow me, Elfride ; I wish you not to.’ 

‘ Oh no ; indeed, I will not.’ 

‘ And then I am going to Castle Boterel. Good-bye.’ 

He spoke the farewell as if it were but for the day 
— lightly, as he had spoken such temporary farewells 
many times before — and she seemed to understand it 
as such. Knight had not the power to tell her plainly 
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A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


that he was going for ever ; he hardly knew for certain 
that he was : whether he should rush back again upon 
the current of an irresistible emotion, or whether he 
could sufficiently conquer himself, and her in him, to 
establish that parting as a supreme farewell, and present 
himself to the world again as no woman’s. 

Ten minutes later he had left the house, leaving 
directions that if he did not return in the evening his 
luggage was to be sent to his chambers in London, 
whence he intended to write to Mr. Swancourt as to the 
reasons of his sudden departure. He descended the 
valley, and could not forbear turning his head. He saw 
the stubble-field, and a slight girlish figure in the midst 
of it — up against the sky. Elfride, docile as ever, had 
hardly moved a step, for he had said, Remain. He 
looked and saw her again — he saw her for weeks and 
months. He withdrew his eyes from the scene, swept 
his hand across them, as if to brush away the sight, 
breathed a low groan, and went on. 


XXXV 

' And wilt thou leave me thus ? — say nay — say nay ! ' 

The scene shifts to Knight’s chambers in Bede’s Inn. 
It was late in the evening of the day following his 
departure from Endelstow. A drizzling rain descended 
upon London, forming a humid and dreary halo over 
every well-lighted street. The rain had not yet been 
prevalent long enough to give to rapid vehicles that 
clear and distinct rattle which follows the thorough 
washing of the stones by a drenching rain, but was 
just sufficient to make footway and roadway slippery, 
adhesive, and clogging to both feet and wheels. 

Knight was standing by the fire, looking into its 
expiring embers, previously to emerging from his door 
for a dreary journey home to Richmond. His hat was 
on, and the gas turned off. The blind of the window 
overlooking the alley was not drawn down; and with 
the light from beneath, which shone over the ceiling 
of the room, came, in place of the usual babble, only 
the reduced clatter and quick speech which were the 
result of necessity rather than choice. 

Whilst he thus stood, waiting for the expiration 
of the few minutes that were wanting to the time for 
his catching the train, a light tapping upon the door 
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A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 

mingled with the other sounds that reached his ears. 
It was so faint at first that the outer noises were almost 
sufficient to drown it. Finding it repeated Knight 
crossed the lobby, crowded with books and rubbish, 
and opened the door. 

A woman, closely muffled up, but visibly of fragile 
build, was standing on the landing under the gaslight. 
She sprang forward, flung her arms round Knight’s 
neck, and uttered a low cry — 

‘ O Harry, Harry, you are killing me ! I could not 
help coming. Don’t send me away — don’t ! Forgive 
your Elfride for coming — I love you so ! ’ 

Knight’s agitation and astonishment mastered him 
for a few moments. 

‘ Elfride ! ’ he cried, ‘ what does this mean ? What 
have you done ? ’ 

‘ Do not hurt me and punish me — Oh, do not ! 
I couldn’t help coming ; it was killing me. Last 
night, when you did not come back, I could not bear 
it — I could not ! Only let me be with you, and see 
your face, Harry ; I don’t ask for more/ 

Her eyelids were hot, heavy, and thick with excessive 
weeping, and the delicate rose-red of her cheeks was 
disfigured and inflamed by the constant chafing of the 
handkerchief in wiping her many tears. 

* Who is with you ? Have you come alone ? ’ he 
hurriedly inquired. 

‘ Yes. When you did not come last night, I sat up 
hoping you would come — and the night was all agony 
—and I waited on and on, and you did not come ! 
Then when it was morning, and your letter said you 
were gone, I could not endure it ; and I ran away from 
them to St. Launce’s, and came by the train. And 
I have been all day travelling to you, and you won’t 
make me go away again, will you, Harry, because I 
shall always love you till I die ? ’ 

1 Yet it is wrong for you to stay. O Elfride ! what 
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A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


have you committed yourself to ? It is ruin to your good 
name to run to me like this ! Has not your first expe- 
rience been sufficient to keep you from these things ? ’ 

1 My name ! Harry, I shall soon die, and what 
good will my name be to me then ? Oh, could / but 
be the man and you the woman, I would not leave you 
for such a little fault as mine ! Do not think it was 
so vile a thing in me to run away with him. Ah, how 
I wish you could have run away with twenty women 
before you knew me, that I might show you I would 
think it no fault, but be glad to get you after them all, 
so that I had you ! If you only knew me through and 
through, how true I am, Harry. Cannot I be yours ? 
Say you love me just the same, and don’t let me be 
separated from you again, will you? I cannot bear 
it — all the long hours and days and nights going on, 
and you not there, but away because you hate me ! ’ 

* Not hate you, Elfride,’ he said gently, and supported 
her with his arm. ‘ But you cannot stay here now — 
just at present, I mean.’ 

* I suppose I must not — I wish I might. I am 
afraid that if — you lose sight of me — something dark 
will happen, and we shall not meet again. Harry, if I 
am not good enough to be your wife, I wish I could be 
your servant and live with you, and not be sent away 
never to see you again. I don’t mind what it is except 
that ! ’ 

‘No, I cannot send you away : I cannot. God 
knows what dark future may arise out of this evening’s 
work ; but I cannot send you away ! You must sit 
down, and I will endeavour to collect my thoughts and 
see what had better be done.’ 

At that moment a loud knocking at the house door 
was heard by both, accompanied by a hurried ringing of 
the bell that echoed from attic to basement. The door 
was quickly opened, and after a few hasty words of con- 
verse in the hall, heavy footsteps ascended the stairs. 

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A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


The face of Mr. Swancourt, flushed, grieved, and 
stern, appeared round the landing of the staircase. He 
came higher up, and stood beside them. Glancing over 
and past Knight with silent indignation, he turned to 
the trembling girl. 

‘ O Elfride ! and have I found you at last ? Are 
these your tricks, madam ? When will you get rid of 
your idiocies, and conduct yourself like a decent woman ? 
Is my family name and house to be disgraced by acts 
that would be a scandal to a washerwoman’s daughter ? 
Come along, madam ; come ! ’ 

‘ She is so weary ! ’ said Knight, in a voice of 
intensest anguish. ‘ Mr. Swancourt, don’t be harsh 
with her — let me beg of you to be tender with her, and 
love her ! ’ 

‘ To you, sir,’ said Mr. Swancourt, turning to him as 
if by the sheer pressure of circumstances, ‘ I have little 
to say. I can only remark, that the sooner I can retire 
from your presence the better I shall be pleased. Why 
you could not conduct your courtship of my daughter 
like an honest man, I do not know. Why she — a 
foolish inexperienced girl — should have been tempted 
to this piece of folly, I do not know. Even if she had 
not known better than to leave her home, you might 
have, I should think.’ 

‘ It is not his fault : he did not tempt me, papa ! I 
came.’ 

* If you wished the marriage broken off, why didn’t 
you say so plainly? If you never intended to marry, 
why could you not leave her alone? Upon my soul, 
it grates me to the heart to be obliged to think so ill of 
a man I thought my friend ! ’ 

Knight, soul-sick and weary of his life, did not 
arouse himself to utter a word in reply. How should 
he defend himself when his defence was the accusation 
of Elfride ? On that account he felt a miserable satis- 
faction in letting her father go on thinking and speaking 
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A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


wrongfully. It was a faint ray of pleasure straying into 
the great gloominess of his brain to think that the vicar 
might never know but that he, as her lover, tempted her 
away, which seemed to be the form Mr. Swancourt’s 
misapprehension had taken. 

‘ Now, are you coming?’ said Mr. Swancourt to her 
again. He took her unresisting hand, drew it within 
his arm, and led her down the stairs. Knight’s eyes 
followed her, the last moment begetting in him a frantic 
hope that she would turn her head. She passed on, 
and never looked back. 

He heard the door open — close again. The wheels 
of a cab grazed the kerbstone, a murmured direction 
followed. The door was slammed together, the wheels 
moved, and they rolled away. 

From that hour of her reappearance a dreadful 
conflict raged within the breast of Henry Knight. His 
instinct, emotion, affectiveness — or whatever it may be 
called — urged him to stand forward, seize upon Elfride, 
and be her cherisher and protector through life. Then 
came the devastating thought that Elfride’s childlike, 
unreasoning, and indiscreet act in flying to him only 
proved that the proprieties must be a dead letter with 
her; that the unreserve, which was really artlessness 
without ballast, meant indifference to decorum; and 
what so likely as that such a woman had been deceived 
in the past? He said to himself, in a mood of the 
bitterest cynicism : « The suspicious discreet woman who 
imagines dark and evil things of all her fellow-creatures 
is far too shrewd to be deluded by man : trusting beings 
like Elfride are the women who fall.’ 

Hours and days went by, and Knight remained 
inactive. Lengthening time, which made fainter the 
heart-awakening power of her presence, strengthened 
the mental ability to reason her down. Elfride loved 
him, he knew, and he could not leave off loving her - ; 

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A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


but marry her he would not. If she could but be again 
his own Elfride — the woman she had seemed to be — 
but that woman was dead and buried, and he knew 
her no more ! And how could he marry this Elfride, 
one who, if he had originally seen her as she was, would 
have been barely an interesting pitiable acquaintance in 
his eyes — no more ? 

It cankered his heart to think he was confronted by 
the closest instance of a worse state of things than any 
he had assumed in the pleasant social philosophy and 
satire of his essays. 

The moral rightness of this man’s life was worthy 
of all praise ; but in spite of some intellectual acumen, 
Knight had in him a modicum of that wrongheadedness 
which is mostly found in scrupulously honest people. 
With him, truth seemed too clean and pure an ab- 
straction to be so hopelessly churned in with error as 
practical persons find it. Having now seen himself 
mistaken in supposing Elfride to be peerless, nothing 
on earth could make him believe she was not so very 
bad after all. 

He lingered in town a fortnight, doing little else 
than vibrate between passion and opinions. One idea 
remained intact — that it was better Elfride and himself 
should not meet. 

When he surveyed the volumes on his shelves — 
few of which had been opened since Elfride first took 
possession of his heart — their untouched and orderly 
arrangement reproached him as an apostate from the 
old faith of his youth and early manhood. He had 
deserted those never-failing friends, so they seemed to 
say, for an unstable delight in a ductile woman, which 
had ended all in bitterness. The spirit of self-denial, 
verging on asceticism, which had ever animated Knight 
in old times, announced itself as having departed 
with the birth of love, with it having gone the self- 
respect which had compensated for the lack of self- 
407 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


gratification. Poor little Elfride, instead of holding, as 
formerly, a place in his religion, began to assume the 
hue of a temptation. Perhaps it was human and cor- 
rectly natural that Knight never once thought whether 
he did not owe her a little sacrifice for her unchary devo- 
tion in saving his life. 

With a consciousness of having thus, like Antony, 
kissed away kingdoms and provinces, he next considered 
how he had revealed his higher secrets and intentions 
to her, an unreserve he would never have allowed 
himself with any man living. How was it that he had 
not been able to refrain from telling her of adumbra- 
tions heretofore locked in the closest strongholds of 
his mind? 

Knight’s was a robust intellect, which could escape 
outside the atmosphere of heart, and perceive that his 
own love, as well as other people’s, could be reduced 
by change of scene and circumstances. At the same 
time the perception was a superimposed sorrow : 

‘ O last regret, regret can die ! * 

But being convinced that the death of this regret was 
the best thing for him, he did not long shrink from 
attempting it. He closed his chambers, suspended his 
connection with editors, and left London for the Conti- 
nent. Here we will leave him to wander without purpose, 
beyond the nominal one of encouraging obliviousness 
of Elfride. 


XXXVI 


‘ The pennie’s the jewel that beautifies a’.’ 

I CAN’T think what’s coming to these St. Launce’s 
people at all at all.’ 

‘ With their “ How-d’ye-do’s,’ do you mean ? ” 

‘ Ay, with their “ How-d’ye-do’s,” and shaking of 
hands, asking me in, and tender inquiries for you, 
John.’ 

These words formed part of a conversation between 
John Smith and his wife on a Saturday evening in 
the spring which followed Knight’s departure from 
England. Stephen had long since returned to India; 
and the persevering couple themselves had migrated 
from Lord Luxellian’s park at Endelstow to a comfort- 
able roadside dwelling about a mile out of St. Launce’s, 
where John had opened a small stone and slate yard 
in his own name. 

‘When we came here six months ago,’ continued 
Mrs. Smith, ‘ though I had paid ready money so many 
years in the town, my friskier shopkeepers would only 
speak over the counter. Meet ’em in the street half-an- 
hour after, and they’d treat me with staring ignorance 
of my face.’ 

‘ Look through ye as through a glass winder ? ’ 

2 D 409 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


‘Yes, the brazen ones would. The quiet and cool 
ones would glance over the top of my head, past my 
side, over my shoulder, but never meet my eye. The 
gentle-modest would turn their faces south if I were 
coming east, flit down a passage if I were about to 
halve the pavement with them. There was the spruce 
young bookseller would play the same tricks ; the 
butcher’s daughters ; the upholsterer’s young men. 
Hand in glove when doing business out of sight with 
you ; but caring nothing for a’ old woman when playing 
the genteel away from all signs of their trade.’ 

‘ True enough, Maria.’ 

‘ Well, to-day ’tis all different. I’d no sooner got to 
market than Mrs. Joakes rushed up to me in the eyes 
of the town and said, “ My dear Mrs. Smith, now you 
must be tired with your walk ! Come in and have 
some lunch ! I insist upon it ; knowing you so many 
years as I have! Don’t you remember when we used 
to go looking for owls’ feathers together in the Castle 
ruins ? ” There’s no knowing what you may need, so I 
answered the woman civilly. I hadn’t got to the corner 
before that thriving young lawyer, Sweet, who’s quite 
the dandy, ran after me out of breath. “ Mrs. Smith,” 
he says, “ excuse my rudeness, but there’s a bramble on 
the tail of your dress, which you’ve dragged in from the 
country; allow me to pull it off for you.” If you’ll 
believe me, this was in the very front of the Town Hall. 
What’s the meaning of such sudden love for a’ old 
woman ? ’ 

‘ Can’t say ; unless ’tis repentance.’ 

‘ Repentance ! was there ever such a fool as you, 
John ? Did anybody ever repent with money in’s pocket 
and fifty years to live ? ’ 

‘ Now, I’ve been thinking too/ said John, passing 
over the query as hardly pertinent, ‘ that I’ve had more 
loving-kindness from folks to-day than I ever have 
before since we moved here. Why, old Alderman Tope 
410 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


walked out to the middle of the street where I was, to 
shake hands with me — so ’a did. Having on my 
working clothes, I thought ’twas odd. Ay, and there 
was young Werrington.’ 

‘ Who’s he ? ’ 

‘ Why, the man in Hill Street, who plays and sells 
flutes, trumpets, and fiddles, and grand pehanners. 
He was talking to Egloskerry, that very small bachelor- 
man with money in the funds. I was going by, I’m 
sure, without thinking or expecting a nod from men of 
that glib kidney when in my working clothes ’ 

‘ You always will go poking into town in your 
working clothes. Beg you to change how I will, ’tis 
no use.’ 

* Well, however, I was in my working clothes. 
Werrington saw me. “ Ah, Mr. Smith ! a fine morning ; 
excellent weather for building,” says he, out as loud and 
friendly as if I’d met him in some deep hollow, where 
he could get nobody else to speak to at all. ’Twas 
odd : for Werrington is one of the very ringleaders of 
the fast class.’ 

At that moment a tap came to the door. The door 
was immediately opened by Mrs. Smith in person. 

‘ You’ll excuse us, I’m sure, Mrs. Smith, but this 
beautiful spring weather was too much for us. Yes, 
and we could stay in no longer; and I took Mrs. 
Trewen upon my arm directly we’d had a cup of tea, 
and out we came. And seeing your beautiful crocuses 
in such a bloom, we’ve taken the liberty to enter. We’ll 
step round the garden, if you don’t mind.’ 

‘Not at all,’ said Mrs. Smith ; and they walked 
round the garden. She lifted her hands in amazement 
directly their backs were turned. ‘ Goodness send us 
grace ! ’ 

‘ Who be they ? ’ said her husband. 

‘Actually Mr. Trewen, the bank-manager, and his 
wife.’ 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 

John Smith, staggered in mind, went out of doors 
and looked over the garden gate, to collect his ideas. 
He had not been there two minutes when wheels were 
heard, and a carriage and pair rolled along the road. 
A distinguished-looking lady, with the demeanour of a 
duchess, reclined within. When opposite Smith’s gate 
she turned her head, and instantly commanded the 
coachman to stop. 

‘ Ah, Mr. Smith, I am glad to see you looking so 
well. I could not help stopping a moment to congratu- 
late you and Mrs. Smith upon the happiness you must 
enjoy. Joseph, you may drive on.’ 

And the carriage rolled away towards St. Launce’s. 

Out rushed Mrs. Smith from behind a laurel-bush, 
where she had stood pondering. 

‘Just going to touch my hat to her,’ said John; 

‘ just for all the world as I would have to poor Lady 
Luxellian years ago.’ 

4 Lord ! who is she ? ’ 

4 The public-house woman — what’s her name ? Mrs. 
— Mrs. — at the Falcon.’ 

4 Public-house woman. The clumsiness of the Smith 
family ! You might say the landlady of the Falcon 
Hotel, since we are in for politeness. The people are 
ridiculous enough, but give them their due.’ 

The possibility is that Mrs. Smith was getting molli- 
fied, in spite of herself, by these remarkably friendly 
phenomena among the people of St. Launce’s. And 
in justice to them it was quite desirable that she should 
do so. The interest which the unpractised ones of 
this town expressed so grotesquely was genuine of 
its kind, and equal in intrinsic worth to the more 
polished smiles of larger communities. 

By this time Mr. and Mrs. Trewen were returning 
from the garden. 

4 I’ll ask ’em flat,’ whispered John to his wife. 
4 I’ll say, 44 We be in a fog — you’ll excuse my asking a 
412 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 

question, Mr. and Mrs. Trewen. How is it you all be 
so friendly to-day ? ” Hey ? ’Twould sound right and 
sensible, wouldn’t it ? ’ 

‘ Not a word ! Good mercy, when will the man 
have manners ! 5 

‘ It must be a proud moment for you, I am sure, 
Mr. and Mrs. Smith, to have a son so celebrated,’ said 
the bank-manager advancing. 

* Ah, ’tis Stephen — I knew it ! ’ said Mrs. Smith 
triumphantly to herself. 

‘ We don’t know particulars,’ said John. 

* Not know ! ’ 

‘ No.’ 

‘ Why, ’tis all over town. Our worthy Mayor 
alluded to it in a speech at the dinner last night of 
the Every-Man-his-own-Maker Club.’ 

* And what about Stephen ? ’ urged Mrs. Smith. 

‘ Why, your son has been feted by deputy-governors 
and Parsee princes and nobody-knows-who in India; 
is hand in glove with nabobs, and is to design a large 
palace, and cathedral, and hospitals, colleges, halls, and 
fortifications, by the general consent of the ruling 
powers, Christian and Pagan alike.’ 

‘ ’Twas sure to come to the boy/ said Mr. Smith 
unassumingly. 

‘ ’Tis in yesterday’s St. Launce's Chronicle ; and our 
worthy Mayor in the chair introduced the subject into 
his speech last night in a masterly manner.’ 

‘ ’Twas very good of the worthy Mayor in the chair, 
I’m sure,’ said Stephen’s mother. ‘ I hope the boy will 
have the sense to keep what he’s got ; but as for men, 
they are a simple sex. Some woman will hook him.’ 

‘ Well, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, the evening closes in, 
and we must be going ; and remember this, that every 
Saturday when you come in to market, you are to make 
our house as your own. There will be always a tea-cup 
and saucer for you, as you know there has been for 
4i3 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


months, though you may have forgotten it. I’m a 
plain-speaking woman, and what I say I mean.’ 

When the visitors were gone, and the sun had set, 
and the moon’s rays were just beginning to assert 
themselves upon the walls of the dwelling, John Smith 
and his wife sat down to the newspaper they had hastily 
procured from the town. And when the reading was 
done, they considered how best to meet the new social 
requirements settling upon them, which Mrs. Smith 
considered could be done by new furniture and house 
enlargement alone. 

‘And, John, mind one thing,’ she said in conclusion. 
* In writing to Stephen, never by any means mention 
the name of Elfride Swancourt again. We’ve left the 
place, and know no more about her except by hearsay. 
He seems to be getting free of her, and glad am I 
for it. It was a cloudy hour for him when he first 
set eyes upon the girl. That family’s been no good 
to him, first or last ; so let them keep their blood to 
themselves if they want to. He thinks of her, I know, 
but not so hopelessly. So don’t try to know anything 
about her, and we can’t answer his questions. She 
may die out of his mind then.’ 

* That shall be it,’ said John. 


XXXVII 


‘ After many days.’ 


Knight roamed south, under colour of studying 
Continental antiquities. 

He paced the lofty aisles of Amiens, loitered by 
Ardennes Abbey, climbed into the strange towers of 
Laon, analyzed Noyon and Rheims. Then he went to 
Chartres, and examined its scaly spires and quaint carv- 
ing : then he idled about Coutances. He rowed be- 
neath the base of Mont St. Michel, and caught the 
varied skyline of the crumbling edifices encrusting it. 
St. Ouen’s, Rouen, knew him for days ; so did Vezelay, 
Sens, and many a hallowed monument besides. Aban- 
doning the inspection of early French art with the same 
purposeless haste as he had shown in undertaking it, he 
went further, and lingered about Ferrara, Padua, and 
Pisa. Satiated with medievalism, he tried the Roman 
Forum. Next he observed moonlight and starlight 
effects by the bay of Naples. He turned to Austria, 
became enervated and depressed on Hungarian and 
Bohemian plains, and was refreshed again by breezes on 
the declivities of the Carpathians. 

Then he found himself in Greece. He visited the 
plain of Marathon, and strove to imagine the Persian 
4i5 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


defeat ; to Mars Hill, to picture St. Paul addressing the 
ancient Athenians ; to Thermopylae and Salamis, to run 
through the facts and traditions of the Second Invasion 
— the result of his endeavours being more or less 
chaotic. Knight grew as weary of these places as of all 
others. Then he felt the shock of an earthquake in the 
Ionian Islands, and went to Venice. Here he shot in 
gondolas up and down the winding thoroughfare of the 
Grand Canal, and loitered on calle and piazza at night, 
when the lagunes were undisturbed by a ripple, and no 
sound was to be heard but the stroke of the midnight 
clock. Afterwards he remained for weeks in the 
museums, galleries, and libraries of Vienna, Berlin, and 
Paris ; and thence came home. 

Time thus rolls us on to a February afternoon, divided 
by fifteen months from the parting of Elfride and her 
lover in the brown stubble field towards the sea. 

Two men obviously not Londoners, and with a touch 
of foreignness in their look, met by accident on one 
of the gravel walks leading across Hyde Park. The 
younger, more given to looking about him than his 
fellow, saw and noticed the approach of his senior some 
time before the latter had raised his eyes from the 
ground, upon which they were bent in an abstracted 
gaze that seemed habitual with him. 

‘ Mr. Knight — indeed it is ! 7 exclaimed the younger 
man. 

‘ Ah, Stephen Smith ! ’ said Knight. 

Simultaneous operations might now have been ob- 
served progressing in both, the result being that an 
expression less frank and impulsive than the first took 
possession of their features. It was manifest that the 
next words uttered were a superficial covering to con- 
straint on both sides. 

‘ Have you been in England long ? 7 said Knight. 

‘ Only two days,’ said Smith. 

‘ India ever since ? ’ 


416 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


‘ Nearly ever since/ 

* They were making a fuss about you at St. Launce’s last 
year. I fancy I saw something of the sort in the papers.’ 

‘ Yes ; I believe something was said about me.’ 

* I must congratulate you on your achievements.’ 

‘ Thanks, but they are nothing very extraordinary. 
A natural professional progress where there was no 
opposition.’ 

There followed that want of words which will always 
assert itself between nominal friends who find they 
have ceased to be real ones, and have not yet sunk to 
the level of mere acquaintance. Each looked up and 
down the Park. Knight may possibly have borne in 
mind during the intervening months Stephen’s manner 
towards him the last time they had met, and may have 
encouraged his former interest in Stephen’s welfare to 
die out of him as misplaced. Stephen certainly was 
full of the feelings begotten by the belief that Knight 
had taken away the woman he loved so well. 

Stephen Smith then asked a question, adopting a 
certain recklessness of manner and tone to hide, if 
possible, the fact that the subject was a much greater 
one to him than his friend had ever supposed. 

* Are you married ? ’ 

‘ I am not.’ 

Knight spoke in an indescribable tone of bitterness 
that was almost moroseness. 

* And I never shall be,’ he added decisively. ‘ Are 
you ? ’ 

* No,’ said Stephen, sadly and quietly, like a man in 
a sick-room. Totally ignorant whether or not Knight 
knew of his own previous claims upon Elfride, he yet 
resolved to hazard a few more words upon the topic 
which had an aching fascination for him even now. 

* Then your engagement to Miss Swancourt came to 
nothing,’ he said. ‘ You remember I met you with hef 
once ? ’ 

2 D 


417 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


Stephen’s voice gave way a little here, in defiance of 
his firmest will to the contrary. Indian affairs had not yet 
lowered those emotions down to the point of control. 

4 It was broken off,’ came quickly from Knight. 

‘ Engagements to marry often end like that — for better 
or for worse.’ 

* Yes ; so they do. And what have you been doing 
lately?’ 

* Doing ? Nothing.’ 

4 Where have you been ? ’ 

* I can hardly tell you. In the main, going about 
Europe ; and it may perhaps interest you to know that 
I have been attempting the serious study of Continental 
art of the Middle Ages. My notes on each example I 
visited are at your service. They are of no use to me.’ 

4 1 shall be glad with them. . . . Oh, travelling far 
and near ! ’ 

4 Not far,’ said Knight, with moody carelessness. 
4 You know, I daresay, that sheep occasionally become 
giddy — hydatids in the head, ’tis called, in which their 
brains become eaten up, and the animal exhibits the 
strange peculiarity of walking round and round in a 
circle continually. I have travelled just in the same 
way — round and round like a giddy ram.’ 

The reckless, bitter, and rambling style in which 
Knight talked, as if rather to vent his images than to 
convey any ideas to Stephen, struck the young man 
painfully. His former friend’s days had become cankered 
in some way : Knight was a changed man. He himself 
had changed much, but not as Knight had changed. 

4 Yesterday I came home,’ continued Knight, 4 with- 
out having, to the best of my belief, imbibed half-a-dozen 
ideas worth retaining.’ 

4 You out-Hamlet Hamlet in morbidness of mood,’ 
said Stephen, with regretful frankness. 

Knight made no reply. 

4 Do you know,’ Stephen continued, 4 1 could almost 
418 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


have sworn that you would be married before this time, 
from what I saw ? ’ 

Knight’s face grew harder. ‘ Could you ? ’ he said. 

Stephen was powerless to forsake the depressing, 
luring subject. 

* Yes ; and I simply wonder at it.’ 

‘ Whom did you expect me to marry ? ’ 

‘ Her I saw you with.’ 

‘ Thank you for that wonder.’ 

‘ Did she jilt you ? ’ 

‘ Smith, now one word to you,’ Knight returned 
steadily. ‘ Don’t you ever question me on that subject. 
I have a reason for making this request, mind. And if 
you do question me, you will not get an answer.’ 

‘ Oh, I don’t for a moment wish to ask what is 
unpleasant to you — not I. I had a momentary feeling 
that I should like to explain something on my side, and 
hear a similar explanation on yours. But let it go, let 
it go, by all means.’ 

* What would you explain ? ’ 

‘ I lost the woman I was going to marry : you have 
not married as you intended. We might have compared 
notes.’ 

‘ I have never asked you a word about your case.’ 

* I know that.’ 

4 And the inference is obvious.’ 

‘ Quite so.’ 

‘The truth is, Stephen, I have doggedly resolved 
never to allude to the matter — for which I have a very 
good reason.’ 

‘ Doubtless. As good a reason as you had for not 
marrying her.’ 

‘ You talk insidiously. I had a good one — a miser- 
ably good one ! ’ 

Smith’s anxiety urged him to venture one more 
question. 

‘ Did she not love you enough ? ’ He drew his 
419 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


breath in a slow and attenuated stream, as he waited 
in timorous hope for the answer. 

‘ Stephen, you rather strain ordinary courtesy in 
pressing questions of that kind after what I have said. 
I cannot understand you at all. I must go on now.’ 

* Why, good God ! ’ exclaimed Stephen passionately, 
* you talk as if you hadn’t at all taken her away from 
anybody who had better claims to her than you ! •’ 

‘ What do you mean by that ? ’ said Knight, with a 
puzzled air. ‘ What have you heard ? ’ 

‘ Nothing. I too must go on. Good-day.’ 

‘ If you will go,’ said Knight, reluctantly now, ‘ you 
must, I suppose. I am sure I cannot understand why 
you behave so.’ 

‘Nor I why you do. I have always been grateful 
to you, and as far as I am concerned we need never 
have become so estranged as we have.’ 

* And have I ever been anything but well-disposed 
towards you, Stephen ? Surely you know that I have not ! 
The system of reserve began with you : you know that.’ 

1 No, no ! You altogether mistake our position. 
You were always from the first reserved to me, though 
I was confidential to you. That was, I suppose, the 
natural issue of our differing positions in life. And 
when I, the pupil, became reserved like you, the master, 
you did not like it. However, I was going to ask you 
to come round and see me.’ 

‘ Where are you staying ? ’ 

* At the Grosvenor Hotel, Pimlico.’ 

* So am I.’ 

‘ That’s convenient, not to say odd. Well, I am 
detained in London for a day or two ; then I am going 
down to see my father and mother, who live at St. 
Launce’s now. Will you see me this evening ? ’ 

‘ I may ; but I will not promise. I was wishing to 
be alone for an hour or two ; but I shall know where 
to find you, at any rate. Good-bye.’ 

420 


XXXVIII 


‘Jealousy is cruel as the grave.* 

STEPHEN pondered not a little on this meeting with 
his old friend and once-beloved exemplar. He was 
grieved, for amid all the distractions of his latter years 
a still small voice of fidelity to Knight had lingered on 
in him. Perhaps this staunchness was because Knight 
ever treated him as a mere disciple — even to snubbing 
him sometimes ; and had at last, though unwittingly, 
inflicted upon him the greatest snub of all, that of taking 
away his sweetheart. The emotional side of his constitu- 
tion was built rather after a feminine than a male model ; 
and that tremendous wound from Knight’s hand may 
have tended to keep alive a warmth which solicitousness 
would have extinguished altogether. 

Knight, on his part, was vexed, after they had parted, 
that he had not taken Stephen in hand a little after the 
old manner. Those words which Smith had let fall 
concerning somebody having a prior claim to Elfride, 
would, if uttered when the man was younger, have pro- 
voked such a query as, ‘ Come, tell me all about it, my 
lad,’ from Knight, and Stephen would straightway have 
delivered himself of all he knew on the subject. 

Stephen the ingenuous boy, though now obliterated 
421 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


externally by Stephen the contriving man, returned to 
Knight’s memory vividly that afternoon. He was at 
present but a sojourner in London ; and after attending 
to the two or three matters of business which remained 
to be done that day, he walked abstractedly into the 
gloomy corridors of the British Museum for the half- 
hour previous to their closing. That meeting with 
Smith had reunited the present with the past, closing 
up the chasm of his absence from England as if it 
had never existed, until the final circumstances of his 
previous time of residence in London formed but a 
yesterday to the circumstances now. The conflict that 
then had raged in him concerning Elfride Swancourt 
revived, strengthened by its sleep. Indeed, in those 
many months of absence, though quelling the intention 
to make her his wife, he had never forgotten that she 
was the type of woman adapted to his nature ; and 
instead of trying to obliterate thoughts of her alto- 
gether, he had grown to regard them as an infirmity it 
was necessary to tolerate. 

Knight returned to his hotel much earlier in the 
evening than he would have done in the ordinary course 
of things. He did not care to think whether this arose 
from a friendly wish to close the gap that had slowly 
been widening between himself and his earliest acquaint- 
ance, or from a hankering desire to hear the meaning 
of the dark oracles Stephen had hastily pronounced, 
betokening that he knew something more of Elfride 
than Knight had supposed. 

He made a hasty dinner, inquired for Smith, and 
soon was ushered into the young man’s presence, 
whom he found sitting in front of a comfortable fire, 
beside a table spread with a few scientific periodicals 
and art reviews. 

‘ I have come to you, after all,’ said Knight. ‘ My 
manner was odd this morning, and it seemed desirable 
to call; but that you had too much sense to notice, 
422 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


Stephen, I know. Put it down to my wanderings in 
France and Italy.’ 

‘ Don’t say another word, but sit down. I am only 
too glad to see you again.’ 

Stephen would hardly have cared to tell Knight just 
then that the minute before Knight was announced he 
had been reading over some old letters of Elfride’s. 
They were not many; and until to-night had been 
sealed up, and stowed away in a corner of his leather 
trunk, with a few other mementoes and relics which had 
accompanied him in his travels. The familiar sights 
and sounds of London, the meeting with his friend, had 
with him also revived that sense of abiding continuity 
with regard to Elfride and love which his absence at the 
other side of the world had to some extent suspended, 
though never ruptured. He at first intended only to 
look over these letters on the outside ; then he read one ; 
then another; until the whole was thus re-used as a 
stimulus to sad memories. He folded them away again, 
placed them in his pocket, and instead of going on with 
an examination into the state of the artistic world, had 
remained musing on the strange circumstance that he 
had returned to find Knight not the husband of Elfride 
after all. 

The possibility of any given gratification begets a 
cumulative sense of its necessity. Stephen gave the rein 
to his imagination, and felt more intensely than he had 
felt for many months that, without Elfride, his life would 
never be any great pleasure to himself, or honour to his 
Maker. 

They sat by the fire, chatting on external and 
random -Subjects, neither caring to be the first to 
approach the matter each most longed to discuss. On 
the table with the periodicals lay two or three pocket- 
books, one of them being open. Knight seeing from 
the exposed page that the contents were sketches only, 
began turning the leaves over carelessly with his finger. 

423 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


When, some time later, Stephen was out of the room, 
Knight proceeded to pass the interval by looking at the 
sketches more carefully. 

The first crude ideas, pertaining to dwellings of all 
kinds, were roughly outlined on the different pages. 
Antiquities had been copied; fragments of Indian 
columns, colossal statues, and outlandish ornament 
from the temples of Elephanta and Kenneri, were care- 
lessly intruded upon by outlines of modern doors, win- 
dows, roofs, cooking-stoves, and household furniture; 
everything, in short, which comes within the range of a 
practising architect’s experience, who travels with his 
eyes open. Among these occasionally appeared rough 
delineations of mediaeval subjects for carving or illumi- 
nation — heads of Virgins, Saints, and Prophets. 

Stephen was not professedly a free-hand draughts- 
man, but he drew the human figure with correctness 
and skill. In its numerous repetitions on the sides and 
edges of the leaves, Knight began to notice a peculiarity. 
All the feminine saints had one type of feature. There 
were large nimbi and small nimbi about their drooping 
heads, but the face was always the same. That profile 
— how well Knight knew that profile ! 

Had there been but one specimen of the familiar 
countenance, he might have passed over the resemblance 
as accidental; but a repetition meant more. Knight 
thought anew of Smith’s hasty words earlier in the day, 
and looked at the sketches again and again. 

On the young man’s entry, Knight said with palpable 
agitation — 

* Stephen, who are those intended for ? ’ 

Stephen looked over the book with utter unconcern : 
‘ Saints and angels, done in my leisure moments. They 
were intended as designs for the stained glass of an 
English church.’ 

‘ But whom do you idealize by that type of woman 
you always adopt for the Virgin ? ’ 

424 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


‘ Nobody.’ 

And then a thought raced along Stephen’s mind, 
ind he looked up at his friend. 

The truth is, Stephen’s introduction of Elfride’s 
lineaments had been so unconscious that he had not 
at first understood his companion’s drift. The hand, 
like the tongue, easily acquires the trick of repetition 
by rote, without calling in the mind to assist at all; 
and this had been the case here. Young men who 
cannot write verses about their Loves generally take to 
portraying them, and in the early days of his attachment 
Smith had never been weary of outlining Elfride. The 
lay-figure of Stephen’s sketches now initiated an adjust- 
ment of many things. Knight had recognized her. The 
opportunity of comparing notes had come unsought. 

‘ Elfride Swancourt, to whom I was engaged,’ he 
said quietly. 

‘ Stephen ! ’ 

‘I know what you mean by speaking like that.’ 

* Was it Elfride ? You the man, Stephen ? ’ 

‘ Yes j and you are thinking why did I conceal the 
fact from you that time at Endelstow, are you not ? ’ 

‘Yes, and more — more.’ 

‘ I did it for the best ; blame me if you will ; I did 
it for the best. And now say how could I be with you 
afterwards as I had been before ? ’ 

‘ I don’t know at all ; I can’t say.’ 

Knight remained fixed in thought, and once he 
murmured — 

‘ I had a suspicion this afternoon that there might 
be some such meaning in your words about my taking 
her away. But I dismissed it. How came you to know 
her ? ’ he presently asked, in almost a peremptory 
tone. 

‘ I went down about the church ; years ago now.’ 

‘ When you were with Hewby, of course, of course. 
Well, I can’t understand it.’ His tones rose. ‘ I don’t 
425 


a e 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


know what to say, your hoodwinking me like this for 
so long ! * 

‘ I don’t see that I have hoodwinked you at all.’ 

‘ Yes, yes, but ’ 

Knight arose from his seat, and began pacing up 
and down the room. His face was markedly pale, and 
his voice perturbed, as he said — 

‘ You did not act as I should have acted towards you 
under those circumstances. I feel it deeply ; and I tel) 
you plainly, I shall never forget it ! ’ 

‘ What ? ’ 

* Your behaviour at that meeting in the family vault, 
when I told you we were going to be married. Decep- 
tion, dishonesty, everywhere ; all the world’s of a piece ! ’ 

Stephen did not much like this misconstruction of 
his motives, even though it was but the hasty conclusion 
of a friend disturbed by emotion. 

‘ 1 could do no otherwise than I did, with due regard 
to her,’ he said stiffly. 

‘ Indeed ! ’ said Knight, in the bitterest tone of 
reproach. ‘ Nor could you with due regard to her have 
married her, I suppose ! I have hoped — longed — that 
A*, who turns out to be you , would ultimately have 
done that.’ 

‘ I am much obliged to you for that hope. But you 
talk very mysteriously. I think I had about the best 
reason anybody could have had for not doing that.’ 

‘ Oh, what reason was it ? ’ 

‘ That I could not.’ 

‘You ought to have made an opportunity; you 
ought to do so now, in bare justice to her, Stephen ! ’ 
cried Knight, carried beyond himself. * That you know 
very well, and it hurts and wounds me more than you 
dream to find you never have tried to make any repara- 
tion to a woman of that kind — so trusting, so apt to be 
run away with by her feelings — poor little fool, so much 
the worse for her ! ’ 


426 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 

‘ Why, you talk like a madman ! You took her away 
from me, did you not ? ’ 

‘ Picking up what another throws down can scarcely 
be called “ taking away.” However, we shall not agree 
too well upon that subject, so we had better part.’ 

£ But I am quite certain you misapprehend some- 
thing most grievously,’ said Stephen, shaken to the 
bottom of his heart. ‘ What have I done ; tell me ? I 
have lost Elfride, but is that such a sin ? ’ 

* Was it her doing, or yours ? ’ 

‘ Was what ? ’ 

* That you parted.’ 

‘ I will tell you honestly. It was hers entirely, en- 
tirely.’ 

‘ What was her reason ? ’ 

‘ I can hardly say. But I’ll tell the story without 
reserve.’ 

Stephen until to-day had unhesitatingly held that she 
grew tired of him and turned to Knight ; but he did 
not like to advance the statement now, or even to think 
the thought. To fancy otherwise accorded better with 
the hope to which Knight’s estrangement had given 
birth : that love for his friend was not the direct cause, 
but a result of her suspension of love for himself. 

‘ Such a matter must not be allowed to breed dis- 
cord between us,’ Knight returned, relapsing into a 
manner which concealed all his true feeling, as if con- 
fidence now was intolerable. ‘ I do see that your reti- 
cence towards me in the vault may have been dictated 
by prudential considerations.’ He concluded artifi- 
cially, ‘ It was a strange thing altogether ; but not of 
much importance, I suppose, at this distance of time ; 
and it does not concern me now, though I don’t mind 
hearing your story.’ 

These words from Knight, utttered with such an air 
of renunciation and apparent indifference, prompted 
Smith to speak on — perhaps with a little complacency 
427 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


—of his old secret engagement to Elfride. He told 
the details of its origin, and the peremptory words and 
actions of her father to extinguish their love. 

Knight persevered in the tone and manner of a dis- 
interested outsider. It had become more than ever 
imperative to screen his emotions from Stephen’s eye ; 
the young man would otherwise be less frank, and 
their meeting would be again embittered. What was 
the use of untoward candour ? 

Stephen had now arrived at the point in his ingenu- 
ous narrative where he left the vicarage because of her 
father’s manner. Knight’s interest increased. Their 
love seemed so innocent and childlike thus far. 

‘It is a nice point in casuistry,’ he observed, ‘ to 
decide whether you were culpable or not in not telling 
Swancourt that your friends were parishioners of his. 
It was only human nature to hold your tongue under 
the circumstances. Well, what was the result of your 
dismissal by him ? ’ 

‘ That we agreed to be secretly faithful. And to 
insure this we thought we would marry.’ 

Knight’s suspense and agitation rose higher when 
Stephen entered upon this phase of the subject. 

‘ Do you mind telling on ? ’ he said, steadying his 
manner of speech. 

‘ Oh, not at all.’ 

Then Stephen gave in full the particulars of the 
meeting with Elfride at the railway station ; the neces- 
sity they were under of going to London, unless the 
ceremony were to be postponed. The long journey of 
the afternoon and evening; her timidity and revulsion 
of feeling; its culmination on reaching London; the 
crossing over to the down-platform and their immediate 
departure again, solely in obedience to her wish ; the 
journey all night ; their anxious watching for the dawn ; 
their arrival at St. Launce’s at last — were detailed. 
And he told how a village woman named Jethway was 
428 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


the only person who recognized them, either going or 
coming ; and how dreadfully this terrified Elfride. He 
told how he waited in the fields whilst this then re- 
proachful sweetheart went for her pony, and how the 
last kiss he ever gave her was given a mile out of the 
town, on the way to Endelstow. 

These things Stephen related with a will. He 
believed that in doing so he established word by word 
the reasonableness of his claim to Elfride. 

‘ Curse her ! curse that woman ! — that miserable 
letter that parted us ! O God ! * 

Knight began pacing the room again, and uttered 
this at further end. 

‘ What did you say ? ’ said Stephen, turning round. 

‘ Say ? Did I say anything ? Oh, I was merely 
thinking about your story, and the oddness of my 
having a fancy for the same woman afterwards. And 
that now I — I have forgotten her almost ; and neither 
of us care about her, except just as a friend, you 
know, eh ? ’ 

Knight still continued at the further end of the room, 
somewhat in shadow. 

‘ Exactly,’ said Stephen, inwardly exultant, for he was 
really deceived by Knight’s off-hand manner. 

Yet he was deceived less by the completeness of 
Knight’s disguise than by the persuasive power which 
lay in the fact that Knight had never before deceived 
him in anything. So this supposition that his com- 
panion had ceased to love Elfride was an enormous 
lightening of the weight which had turned the scale 
against him. 

* Admitting that Elfride could love another man after 
you,’ said the elder, under the same varnish of careless 
criticism, ‘ she was none the worse for that experience.’ 

‘ The worse ? Of course she was none the worse.’ 

« Did you ever think it a wild and thoughtless thing 
for her to do ? ’ 

429 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


‘ Indeed, I never did/ said Stephen. ‘ I persuaded 
her. She saw no harm in it until she decided to 
return, nor did I ; nor was there, except to the extent 
of indiscretion.’ 

‘ Directly she thought it was wrong she would go no 
further ? ’ 

‘That was it. I had just begun to think it 
wrong too.’ 

‘ Such a childish escapade might have been misre- 
presented by any evil-disposed person, might it not ? ’ 

‘ It might ; but I never heard that it was. Nobody 
who really knew all the circumstances would have done 
otherwise than smile. If all the world had known it, 
Elfride would still have remained the only one who 
thought her action a sin. Poor child, she always per- 
sisted in thinking so, and was frightened more than 
enough.’ 

‘ Stephen, do you love her now ? ’ 

‘ Well, I like her ; I always shall, you know/ he said 
evasively, and with all the strategy love suggested. ‘ But 
I have not seen her for so long that I can hardly be 
expected to love her. Do you love her still ? ’ 

‘ How shall I answer without being ashamed ? What 
fickle beings we men are, Stephen ! Men may love 
strongest for a while, but women love longest. I used 
to love her — in my way, you know.’ 

‘ Yes, I understand. Ah, and I used to love her in 
my way. In fact, I loved her a good deal at one time ; 
but travel has a tendency to obliterate early fancies.’ 

‘ It has— it has, truly.’ 

Perhaps the most extraordinary feature in this con- 
versation was the circumstance that, though each inter- 
locutor had at first his suspicions of the other’s abiding 
passion awakened by several little acts, neither would 
allow himself to see that his friend might now be speak- 
ing deceitfully as well as he. 

‘ Stephen/ resumed Knight, ‘ now that matters are 
43 © 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


smooth between us, I think I must leave you. You 
won’t mind my hurrying off to my quarters ? ’ 

‘ You’ll stay to some sort of supper surely ? Why 
didn’t you come to dinner ! ’ 

4 You must really excuse me this once.’ 

4 Then you’ll drop in to breakfast to-morrow.’ 

4 I shall be rather pressed for time.’ 

4 An early breakfast, which shall interfere with 
nothing ? ’ 

4 I’ll come,’ said Knight, with as much readiness as it 
was possible to graft upon a huge stock of reluctance. 
4 Yes, early; eight o’clock say, as we are under the same 
roof.’ 

4 Any time you like. Eight it shall be.’ 

And Knight left him. To wear a mask, to dissemble 
his feelings as he had in their late miserable conversa- 
tion, was such torture that he could support it no longer. 
It was the first time in Knight’s life that he had ever 
been so entirely the player of a part. And the man he 
had thus deceived was Stephen, who had docilely looked 
up to him from youth as a superior of unblemished 
integrity. 

He went to bed, and allowed the fever of his excite- 
ment to rage uncontrolled. Stephen — it was only he 
who was the rival — only Stephen ! There was an anti- 
climax of absurdity which Knight, wretched and con- 
science-stricken as he was, could not help recognizing. 
Stephen was but a boy to him. Where the great grief 
lay was in perceiving that the very innocence of Elfride 
in reading her little fault as one so grave was what had 
fatally misled him. Had Elfride, with any degree of 
coolness, asserted that she had done no harm, the 
poisonous breath of the dead Mrs. Jethway would have 
been inoperative. Why did he not make his little docile 
girl tell more? If on that subject he had only exer- 
cised the imperativeness customary with him on others, 
all might have been revealed. It smote his heart like 
43i 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


a switch when he remembered how gently she had 
borne his scourging speeches, never answering him with 
a single reproach, only assuring him of her unbounded 
love. 

Knight blessed Elfride for her sweetness, and forgot 
her fault. He pictured with a vivid fancy those fair 
summer scenes with her. He again saw her as at their 
first meeting, timid at speaking, yet in her eagerness 
to be explanatory borne forward almost against her 
will. How she would wait for him in green places, 
without showing any of the ordinary womanly affecta- 
tions of indifference ! How proud she was to be seen 
walking with him, bearing legibly in her eyes the thought 
that he was the greatest genius in the world ! 

He formed a resolution ; and after that could make 
pretence of slumber no longer. Rising and dressing 
himself, he sat down and waited for day. 

That night Stephen was restless too. Not because 
of the unwontedness of a return to English scenery; 
not because he was about to meet his parents, and settle 
down for awhile to English cottage life. He was in- 
dulging in dreams, and for the nonce the warehouses of 
Bombay and the plains and forts of Poonah were but 
a shadow’s shadow. His dream was based on this one 
atom of fact : Elfride and Knight had become separated, 
and their engagement was as if it had never been. 
Their rupture must have occurred soon after Stephen’s 
discovery of the fact of their union ; and, Stephen went 
on to think, what so probable as that a return of her 
errant affection to himself was the cause ? 

Stephen’s opinions in this matter were those of a 
lover, and not the balanced judgment of an unbiassed 
spectator. His naturally sanguine spirit built hope 
upon hope, till scarcely a doubt remained in his mind 
that her lingering tenderness for him had in some way 
been perceived by Knight, and had provoked their 
parting. 


432 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


To go and see Elfride was the suggestion of impulses 
it was impossible to withstand. At any rate, to run 
down from St. Launce’s to Castle Boterel, a distance 
of less than twenty miles, and glide like a ghost 
about their old haunts, making stealthy inquiries 
about her, would be a fascinating way of passing the 
first spare hours after reaching home on the day after 
the morrow. 

He was now a richer man than heretofore, standing 
on his own bottom ; and the definite position in which 
he had rooted himself nullified old local distinctions. 
He had become illustrious even sanguine clarus , judging 
from the tone of the worthy Mayor of St. Launce’s. 


XXXIX 


' Each to the loved one’s side.* 

T HE friends and rivals breakfasted together the next 
morning. Not a word was said on either side upon 
the matter discussed the previous evening so glibly and 
so hollowly. Stephen was absorbed the greater part of 
the time in wishing he were not forced to stay in town 
yet another day. 

‘ I don’t intend to leave for St. Launce’s till to-morrow, 
as you know,’ he said to Knight at the end of the meal. 

‘ What are you going to do with yourself to-day ? * 

‘ I have an engagement just before ten,’ said Knight 
deliberately ; ‘ and after that time I must call upon two 
or three people.’ 

‘ I’ll look for you this evening,’ said Stephen. 

‘Yes, do. You may as well come and dine with 
me; that is, if we can meet. I may not sleep in 
London to-night; in fact, I am absolutely unsettled as 
to my movements yet. However, the first thing I am 
going to do is to get my baggage shifted from this place 
to Bede’s Inn. Good-bye for the present. I’ll write, 
you know, if I can’t meet you.’ 

It now wanted a quarter to nine o’clock. When 
Knight was gone, Stephen felt yet more impatient of 
434 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


the circumstance that another day would have to drag 
itself away wearily before he could set out for that spot 
of earth whereon a soft thought of him might perhaps be 
nourished still. On a sudden he admitted to his mind 
the possibility that the engagement he was waiting in 
town to keep might be postponed without much harm. 

It was no sooner perceived than attempted. Look- 
ing at his watch, he found it wanted forty minutes to 
the departure of the ten o’clock train from Paddington, 
which left him a surplus quarter of an hour before it 
would be necessary to start for the station. 

Scribbling a hasty note or two — one putting off the 
business meeting, another to Knight apologizing for not 
being able to see him in the evening — paying his bill, 
and leaving his heavier luggage to follow him by goods- 
train, he jumped into a cab and rattled off to the Great 
Western Station. 

Shortly afterwards he took his seat in the railway 
carriage. 

The guard paused on his whistle, to let into the next 
compartment to Smith’s a man of whom Stephen had 
caught but a hasty glimpse as he ran across the platform 
at the last moment. 

Smith sank back into the carriage, stilled by per- 
plexity. The man was like Knight — astonishingly like 
him. Was it possible it could be he? To have got 
there he must have driven like the wind to Bede’s Inn, 
and hardly have alighted before starting again. No, it 
could not be he ; that was not his way of doing things. 

During the early part of the journey Stephen Smith’s 
thoughts busied themselves till his brain seemed swollen. 
One subject was concerning his own approaching actions. 
He was a day earlier than his letter to his parents had 
stated, and his arrangement with them had been that 
they should meet him at Plymouth; a plan which 
pleased the worthy couple beyond expression. Once 
before the same engagement had been made, which he 
435 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


had then quashed by ante-dating his arrival. This time 
he would go right on to Castle Boterel ; ramble in that 
well-known neighbourhood during the evening and next 
morning, making inquiries ; and return to Plymouth 
to meet them as arranged — a contrivance which would 
leave their cherished project undisturbed, relieving his 
own impatience also. 

At Chippenham there was a little waiting, and some 
loosening and attaching of carriages. 

Stephen looked out. At the same moment another 
man’s head emerged from the adjoining window. Each 
looked in the other’s face. 

Knight and Stephen confronted one another. 

‘ You here ! ’ said the younger man. 

‘Yes. It seems that you are too,’ said Knight, 
strangely. 

‘ Yes.’ 

The selfishness of love and the cruelty of jealousy 
were fairly exemplified at this moment. Each of the 
two men looked at his friend as he had never looked 
at him before. Each was troubled at the other’s 
presence. 

‘ I thought you said you were not coming till to- 
morrow,’ remarked Knight. 

‘ I did. It was an afterthought to come to-day. 
This journey was your engagement, then ? ’ 

‘No, it was not. This is an afterthought of mine 
too. I left a note to explain it, and account for my not 
being able to meet you this evening as we arranged.’ 

‘ So did I for you.’ 

‘ You don’t look well : you did not this morning.’ 

‘ I have a headache. You are paler to-day than you 
were.’ 

‘ I, too, have been suffering from headache. We 
have to wait here a few minutes, I think.’ 

They walked up and down the platform, each one 
more and more embarrassingly concerned with the 
43 6 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


awkwardness of his friend’s presence. They reached 
the end of the footway, and paused in sheer absent- 
mindedness. Stephen’s vacant eyes rested upon the 
operations of some porters, who were shifting a dark and 
curious-looking van from the rear of the train, to shunt 
another which was between it and the fore part of the 
train. This operation having been concluded, the two 
friends returned to the side of their carriage. 

* Will you come in here ? ’ said Knight, not very 
warmly. 

‘ I have my rug and portmanteau and umbrella with 
me : it is rather bothering to move now,’ said Stephen 
reluctantly. ‘ Why not you come here ? ’ 

‘ I have my traps too. It is hardly worth while to 
shift them, for I shall see you again, you know.’ 

‘ Oh, yes.’ 

And each got into his own place. Just at starting, 
a man on the platform held up his hands and stopped 
the train. 

Stephen looked out to see what was the matter. 

One of the officials was exclaiming to another, £ That 
carriage should have been attached again. Can’t you 
see it is for the main line ? Quick ! What fools there 
are in the world ! ’ 

‘ What a confounded nuisance these stoppages are ! ’ 
exclaimed Knight impatiently, looking out from his 
compartment. ‘ What is it ? ’ 

* That singular carriage we saw has been unfastened 
from our train by mistake, it seems,’ said Stephen. 

He was watching the process of attaching it. The 
van or carriage, which he now recognized as having 
seen at Paddington before they started, was rich and 
solemn rather than gloomy in aspect. It seemed to be 
quite new, and of modern design, and its impressive 
personality attracted the notice of others beside himself. 
He beheld it gradually wheeled forward by two men on 
each side : slower and more sadly it seemed to approach: 
437 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


then a slight concussion, and they were connected with 
it, and off again. 

Stephen sat all the afternoon pondering upon the 
reason of Knight’s unexpected reappearance. Was he 
going as far as Castle Boterel ? If so, he could only 
have one object in view — a visit to Elfride. And what 
an idea it seemed ! 

At Plymouth Smith partook of a little refreshment, 
and then went round to the side from which the train 
started for Camelton, the new station near Castle Boterel 
and Endelstow. 

Knight was already there. 

Stephen walked up and stood beside him without 
speaking. Two men at this moment crept out from 
among the wheels of the waiting train. 

‘ The carriage is light enough,’ said one in a grim 
tone. ‘ Light as vanity ; full of nothing.’ 

‘ Nothing in size, but a good deal in signification,’ 
said the other, a man of brighter mind and manners. 

Smith then perceived that to their train was attached 
that same carriage of grand and dark aspect which had 
haunted them all the way from London. 

‘ You are going on, I suppose ? ’ said Knight, turning 
to Stephen, after idly looking at the same object. 

‘ Yes.’ 

‘We may as well travel together for the remaining 
distance, may we not ? ’ 

‘ Certainly we will ; ’ and they both entered the same 
door. 

Evening drew on apace. It chanced to be the eve 
of St. Valentine’s — that bishop of blessed memory to 
youthful lovers — and the sun shone low under the rim 
of a thick hard cloud, decorating the eminences of the 
landscape with crowns of orange fire. As the train 
changed its direction on a curve, the same rays stretched 
in through the window, and coaxed open Knight’s half- 
closed eyes. 

438 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 

‘ You will get out at St. Launce’s, I suppose ? ’ he 
murmured. 

* No,’ said Stephen, ‘ I am not expected till to- 
morrow.’ Knight was silent. 

‘ And you — are you going to Endelstow ? ’ said the 
younger man pointedly. 

‘ Since you ask, I can do no less than say I am, 
Stephen,’ continued Knight slowly, and with more 
resolution of manner than he had shown all the day. 
‘ I am going to Endelstow to see if Elfride Swancourt 
is still free ; and if so, to ask her to be my wife.’ 

‘ So am I,’ said Stephen Smith. 

‘ I think you’ll lose your labour,’ Knight returned 
with decision. 

‘ Naturally you do.’ There was a strong accent of 
bitterness in Stephen’s voice. ‘You might have said 
hope instead of think] he added. 

‘ I might have done no such thing. I gave you my 
opinion. Elfride Swancourt may have loved you once, 
no doubt, but it was when she was so young that she 
hardly knew her own mind.’ 

‘ Thank you,’ said Stephen laconically. ‘ She knew 
her mind as well as I did. We are the same age. If 
you hadn’t interfered ’ 

‘ Don’t say that — don’t say it, Stephen ! How 
can you make out that I interfered ? Be just, 
please ! ’ 

‘ Well,’ said his friend, ‘ she was mine before she was 
yours — you know that ! And it seemed a hard thing 
to find you had got her, and that if it had not been 
for you, all might have turned out well for me.’ Stephen 
spoke with a swelling heart, and looked out of the win- 
dow to hide the emotion that would make itself visible 
upon his face. 

« It is absurd,’ said Knight in a kinder tone, * for 
you to look at the matter in that light. What I tell you 
is for your good. You naturally do not like to realize 
439 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


the truth — that her liking for you was only a girl’s first 
fancy, which has no root ever.’ 

‘ It is not true ! ’ said Stephen passionately. ‘ It was 
you put me out. And now you’ll be pushing in again 
between us, and depriving me of my chance again ! 
My right, that’s what it is ! How ungenerous of you to 
come anew and try to take her away from me ! When 
you had won her, I did not interfere ; and you might, I 
think, Mr. Knight, do by me as I did by you ! ’ 

‘ Don’t “ Mr.” me ; you are as well in the world as 
I am now.’ 

* First love is deepest ; and that was mine.’ 

‘ Who told you that ? ’ said Knight superciliously. 

‘ I had her first love. And it was through me that 
you and she parted. I can guess that well enough.’ 

‘ It was. And if I were to explain to you in what 
way that operated in parting us, I should convince you 
that you do quite wrong in intruding upon her — that, 
as I said at first, your labour will be lost. I don’t 
choose to explain, because the particulars are painful. 
But if you won’t listen to me, go on, for Heaven’s sake. 
I don’t care what you do, my boy.’ 

‘ You have no right to domineer over me as you do. 
Just because, when I was a lad, I was accustomed to 
look up to you as a master, and you helped me a little, 
for which I was grateful to you and have loved you, you 
assume too much now, and step in before me. It is 
cruel — it is unjust — of you to injure me so ! ’ 

Knight showed himself keenly hurt at this. 
‘ Stephen, those words are untrue and unworthy of any 
man, and they are unworthy of you. You know you 
wrong me. If you have ever profited by any instruction 
of mine, I am only too glad to know it. You know it 
was given ungrudgingly, and that I have never once 
looked upon it as making you in any way a debtor 
to me.’ 

Stephen’s naturally gentle nature was touched, and 
440 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


it was in a troubled voice that he said, ‘Yes, yes. I 
am unjust in that — I own it.’ 

‘ This is St. Launce’s Station, I think. Are you 
going to get out ? * 

Knight’s manner of returning to the matter in hand 
drew Stephen again into himself. ‘No; I told you I 
was going to Endelstow,’ he resolutely replied. 

Knight’s features became impassive, and he said no 
more. The train continued rattling on, and Stephen 
leant back in his corner and closed his eyes. The 
yellows of evening had turned to browns, the dusky 
shades thickened, and a flying cloud of dust occasion- 
ally stroked the window — borne upon a chilling breeze 
which blew from the north-east. The previously gilded 
but now dreary hills began to lose their daylight aspects 
of rotundity, and to become black discs vandyked against 
the sky, all nature wearing the cloak that six o’clock casts 
over the landscape at this time of the year. 

Stephen started up in bewilderment after a long still- 
ness, and it was some time before he recollected himself. 

‘ Well, how real, how real ! ’ he exclaimed, brushing 
his hand across his eyes. 

‘ What is ? * said Knight. 

‘ That dream. I fell asleep for a few minutes, and 
have had a dream — the most vivid I ever remember.’ 

He wearily looked out into the gloom. They were 
now drawing near to Camelton. The lighting of the 
lamps was perceptible through the veil of evening — each 
flame starting into existence at intervals, and blinking 
weakly against the gusts of wind. 

‘ What did you dream ? ’ said Knight moodily. 

‘ Oh, nothing to be told. ’Twas a sort of incubus. 
There is never anything in dreams.’ 

‘ I hardly supposed there was.’ 

‘ I know that. However, what I so vividly dreamt 
was this, since you would like to hear. It was th$ 
brightest of bright mornings at East Endelstow Church, 

a ' 441 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


and you and I stood by the font. Far away in the 
chancel Lord Luxellian was standing alone, cold and 
impassive, and utterly unlike his usual self : but I knew 
it was he. Inside the altar rail stood a strange clergy- 
man with his book open. He looked up and said to 
Lord Luxellian, “ Where’s the bride ? ” Lord Luxellian 
said, “ There’s no bride.” At that moment somebody 
came in at the door, and I knew her to be Lady 
Luxellian who died. He turned and said to her, “ I 
thought you were in the vault below us ; but that could 
have only been a dream of mine. Come on.” Then 
she came on. And in brushing between us she chilled 
me so with cold that I exclaimed, “ The life is gone out 
of me ! ” and, in the way of dreams, I awoke. But here 
we are at Camelton.’ 

They were slowly entering the station. 

* What are you going to do ? ’ said Knight. * Do 
you really intend to call on the Swancourts ? ’ 

‘ By no means. I am going to make inquiries first. 
I shall stay at the Luxellian Arms to-night. You will 
go right on to Endelstow, I suppose, at once ? ’ 

‘ I can hardly do that at this time of the day. 
Perhaps you are not aware that the family — her father, 
at any rate — is at variance with me as much as with 
you.’ 

‘ I didn’t know it.’ 

‘ And that I cannot rush into the house as an old 
friend any more than you can. Certainly I have the 
privileges of a distant relationship, whatever they 
may be.’ 

Knight let down the window, and looked ahead. 
* There are a great many people at the station,’ he said. 
‘ They seem all to be on the look-out for us.’ 

When the train stopped, the half-estranged friends 
could perceive by the lamplight that the assemblage of 
idlers enclosed as a kernel a group of men in black 
cloaks. A side gate in the platform railing was open, 
442 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


and outside this stood a dark vehicle, which they could 
not at first characterize. Then Knight saw on its upper 
part forms against the sky like cedars by night, and 
knew the vehicle to be a hearse. Few people were at 
the carriage doors to meet the passengers — the majority 
had congregated at this upper end. Knight and 
Stephen alighted, and turned for a moment in the 
same direction. 

The sombre van, which had accompanied them all 
day from London, now began to reveal that their 
destination was also its own. It had been drawn up 
exactly opposite the open gate. The bystanders all 
fell back, forming a clear lane from the gateway to 
the van, and the men in cloaks entered the latter con- 
veyance. 

{ They are labourers, I fancy,’ said Stephen. ‘ Ah, it 
is strange; but I recognize three of them as Endelstow 
men. Rather remarkable this.’ 

Presently they began to come out, two and two ; and 
under the rays of the lamp they were seen to bear 
between them a light-coloured coffin of satin-wood, 
brightly polished, and without a nail. The eight men 
took the burden upon their shoulders, and slowly 
crossed with it over to the gate. 

Knight and Stephen went outside, and came close 
to the procession as it moved off. A carriage belong- 
ing to the cortege turned round close to a lamp. The 
rays shone in upon the face of the vicar of Endelstow, 
Mr. Swancourt — looking many years older than when 
they had last seen him. Knight and Stephen involun- 
tarily drew back. 

Knight spoke to a bystander. 4 What has Mr. 
Swancourt to do with that funeral ? ’ 

‘ He is the lady’s father,’ said the bystander. 

4 What lady’s father ? ’ said Knight, in a voice so 
hollow that the man stared at him. 

4 The father of the lady in the coffin. She died in 
443 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


London, you know, and has been brought here by this 
train. She is to be taken home to-night, and buried 
to-morrow.’ 

Knight stood staring blindly at where the hearse had 
been ; as if he saw it, or some one, there. Then he 
turned, and beheld the lithe form of Stephen bowed 
down like that of an old man. He took his young 
friend’s arm, and led him away from the light. 


Welcome, proud lady.' 


Half an hour has passed. Two miserable men are 
wandering in the darkness up the miles of road from 
Camelton to Endelstow. 

‘ Has she broken her heart ? ’ said Henry Knight. 
‘ Can it be that I have killed her ? I was bitter with 
her, Stephen, and she has died ! And may God have 
no mercy upon me ! 5 

* How can you have killed her more than I ? * 

‘ Why, I went away from her — stole away almost 
— and didn’t tell her I should not come again ; 
and at that last meeting I did not kiss her once, 
but let her miserably go. I have been a fool — a 
fool ! I wish the most abject confession of it before 
crowds of my countrymen could in any way make 
amends to my darling for the intense cruelty I have 
shown her ! ’ 

* Your darling ! ’ said Stephen, with a sort of laugh. 
‘ Any man can say that, I suppose ; any man can. I 
know this, she was my darling before she was yours ; 
and after too. If anybody has a right to call her his 
own, it is I.* 

‘You talk like a man in the dark; which is what 

445 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


you are. Did she ever do anything for you ? Risk her 
name, for instance, for you ? 5 

‘Yes, she did/ said Stephen emphatically. 

‘ Not entirely. Did she ever live for you — prove she 
could not live without you — laugh and weep for you ? ’ 

‘ Yes.’ 

‘ Never ! Did she ever risk her life for you — no ! 
My darling did for me.’ 

* Then it was in kindness only. When did she risk 
her life for you ? ’ 

* To save mine on the cliff yonder. The poor child 
was with me looking at the approach of the Puffin 
steamboat, and I slipped down. We both had a narrow 
escape. I wish we had died there ! ’ 

‘ Ah, but wait/ Stephen pleaded with wet eyes. ‘ She 
went on that cliff to see me arrive home : she had 
promised it. She told me she would months before. 
And would she have gone there if she had not cared 
for me at all ? ’ 

* You have an idea that Elfride died for you, no 
doubt/ said Knight, with a mournful sarcasm too nerve- 
less to support itself. 

* Never mind. If we find that — that she died yours, 
I’ll say no more ever.’ 

‘ And if we find she died yours, I’ll say no more.’ 

* Very well — so it shall be.’ 

The dark clouds into which the sun had sunk had 
begun to drop rain in an increasing volume. 

‘Can we wait somewhere here till this shower is 
over ? ’ said Stephen desultorily. 

‘ As you will. But it is not worth while. We’ll hear 
the particulars, and return. Don’t let people know who 
we are. I am not much now.’ 

They had reached a point at which the road branched 
into two — just outside the west village, one fork of the 
diverging routes passing into the latter place, the other 
stretching on to East Endelstow. Having come some 
446 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


of the distance by the footpath, they now found that the 
hearse was only a little in advance of them. 

‘ I fancy it has turned off to East Endelstow. Can 
you see ? ’ 

‘ I cannot. You must be mistaken.’ 

Knight and Stephen entered the village. A bar of 
fiery light lay across the road, proceeding from the half- 
open door of a smithy, in which bellows were heard 
blowing and a hammer ringing. The rain had increased, 
and they mechanically turned for shelter towards the 
warm and cosy scene. 

Close at their heels came another man, without over- 
coat or umbrella, and with a parcel under his arm. 

‘A wet evening,’ he said to the two friends, and 
passed by them. They stood in the outer penthouse, 
but the man went in to the fire. 

The smith ceased his blowing, and began talking to 
the man who had entered. 

* I have walked all the way from Camel ton,’ said the 
latter. ‘ Was obliged to come to-night, you know.’ 

He held the parcel, which was a flat one, towards the 
firelight, to learn if the rain had penetrated it. Resting 
it edgewise on the forge, he supported it perpendicularly 
with one hand, wiping his face with the handkerchief he 
held in the other. 

‘ I suppose you know what I’ve got here ? ’ he 
observed to the smith. 

‘ No, I don’t,’ said the smith, pausing again on his 
bellows. 

‘ As the rain’s not over, I’ll show you,’ said the bearer. 

He laid the thin and broad package, which had acute 
angles in different directions, flat upon the anvil, and 
the smith blew up the fire to give him more light. 
First, after untying the package, a sheet of brown paper 
was removed : this was laid flat. Then he unfolded a 
piece of baize : this also he spread flat on the paper. 
The third covering was a wrapper of tissue paper, which 
447 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


was spread out in its turn. The enclosure was revealed, 
and he held it up for the smith’s inspection. 

* Oh — I see ! ’ said the smith, kindling with a chas- 
tened interest, and drawing close. ‘ Poor young lady — 
ah, terrible melancholy thing — so soon too ! ’ 

Knight and Stephen turned their heads and looked. 

‘ And what’s that ? ’ continued the smith. 

‘That’s the coronet — beautifully finished, isn’t it? 
Ah, that cost some money ! ’ 

‘’Tis as fine a bit of metal work as ever I see — that ’tis.’ 

‘ It came from the same people as the coffin, you 
know, but was not ready soon enough to be sent round 
to the house in London yesterday. I’ve got to fix it on 
this very night.’ 

The carefully-packed articles were a coffin -plate and 
coronet. 

Knight and Stephen came forward. The under- 
taker’s man, on seeing them look for the inscription, 
civilly turned it round towards them, and each read, 
almost at one moment, by the ruddy light of the coals : 



Wife of Spenser p?ttgo SLuidltan, 
jFt'ftemtij Baton Huielltan; 

IBiciJ JFcbruarg io, 18— . 

They read it, and read it, and read it again — 
Stephen and Knight — as if animated by one soul. 
Then Stephen put his hand upon Knight’s arm, and 
they retired from the yellow glow, further, further, till 
the chill darkness enclosed them round, and the quiet 
sky asserted its presence overhead as a dim grey sheet 
of blank monotony. 

‘ Where shall we go ? ’ said Stephen. 

* I don’t know.’ 

A long silence ensued. . . . ‘ Elfride married ! ’ said 
448 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


Stephen then in a thin whisper, as if he feared to let 
the assertion loose on the world. 

* False/ whispered Knight. 

‘ And dead. Denied us both. I hate “ false ” — I 
hate it ! ’ 

Knight made no answer. 

Nothing was heard by them now save the slow 
measurement of time by their beating pulses, the soft 
touch of the dribbling rain upon their clothes, and the 
low purr of the blacksmith’s bellows hard by. 

* Shall we follow Elfie any further ? ’ Stephen said. 

‘ No : let us leave her alone. She is beyond our 
love, and let her be beyond our reproach. Since we 
don’t know half the reasons that made her do as she 
did, Stephen, how can we say, even now, that she was 
not pure and true in heart ? ’ Knight’s voice had now 
become mild and gentle as a child’s. He went on : 

‘ Can we call her ambitious ? No. Circumstance has, 
as usual, overpowered her purposes — fragile and delicate 
as she — liable to be overthrown in 3 moment by the 
coarse elements of accident. I know that’s it, — don’t 
you ? ’ 

‘ It may be — it must be. Let us go on.’ 

They began to bend their steps towards Castle 
Boterel, whither they had sent their bags from Camel- 
ton. They wandered on in silence for many minutes. 
Stephen then paused, and lightly put his hand within 
Knight’s arm. 

‘ I wonder how she came to die,’ he said in a broken 
whisper. ‘ Shall we return and learn a little more ? ’ 

They turned back again, and entering Endelstow a 
second time, came to a door which was standing open. 
It was that of an inn called the Welcome Home, and 
the house appeared to have been recently repaired and 
entirely modernized. The name too was not that of 
the same landlord as formerly, but Martin Cannister’s. 

Knight and Smith entered. The inn was quite 
449 2 F 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


silent, and they followed the passage till they reached 
the kitchen, where a huge fire was burning, which roared 
up the chimney, and sent over the floor, ceiling, and 
newly-whitened walls a glare so intense as to make the 
candle quite a secondary light. A woman in a white 
apron and black gown was standing there alone be- 
hind a cleanly-scrubbed deal table. Stephen first, and 
Knight afterwards, recognized her as Unity, who had 
been parlour-maid at the vicarage and young lady’s-maid 
at the Crags. 

‘ Unity,’ said Stephen softly, ‘don’t you know me? ’ 

She looked inquiringly a moment, and her face 
cleared up. 

* Mr. Smith — ay, that it is ! ’ she said. ‘ And that’s 
Mr. Knight. I beg you to sit down. Perhaps you 
know that since I saw you last I have married Martin 
Cannister.’ 

* How long have you been married ? ’ 

‘ About five months. We were married the same day 
that my dear Miss Elfie became Lady Luxellian.’ Tears 
appeared in Unity’s eyes, and filled them, and fell down 
her cheek, in spite of efforts to the contrary. 

The pain of the two men in resolutely controlling 
themselves when thus exampled to admit relief of the 
same kind was distressing. They both turned their 
backs and walked a few steps away. 

Then Unity said, * Will you go into the parlour, 
gentlemen ? ’ 

* Let us stay here with her,’ Knight whispered, and 
turning said, ‘ No ; we will sit here. We want to rest 
and dry ourselves here for a time, if you please/ 

That evening the sorrowing friends sat with their 
hostess beside the large fire, Knight in the recess 
formed by the chimney breast, where he was in shade. 
And by showing a little confidence they won hers, and 
she told them what they had stayed to hear — the latter 
history of poor Elfride. 


45 ° 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


‘ One day — after you, Mr. Knight, left us for the last 
time — she was missed from the Crags, and her father 
went after her, and brought her home ill. Where she 
went to, I never knew — but she was very unwell for 
weeks afterwards. And she said to me that she didn’t 
care what became of her, and she wished she could die. 
When she was better, I said she would live to be 
married yet, and she said then, “ Yes ; I’ll do anything 
for the benefit of my family, so as to turn my useless 
life to some practical account.” Well, it began like this 
about Lord Luxellian courting her. The first Lady 
Luxellian had died, and he was in great trouble because 
the little girls were left motherless. After a while they 
used to come and see her in their little black frocks, for 
they liked her as well or better than their own mother — 
that’s true. They used to call her “ little mamma.” 
These children made her a shade livelier, but she was 
not the girl she had been — I could see that — and she 
grew thinner a good deal. Well, my lord got to ask 
the Swancourts oftener and oftener to dinner — nobody 
else of his acquaintance — and at last the vicar’s family 
were backwards and forwards at all hours of the day. 
Well, people say that the little girls asked their father 
to let Miss Elfride come and live with them, and that 
he said perhaps he would if they were good children. 
However, the time went on, and one day I said, “ Miss 
Elfride, you don’t look so well as you used to; and 
though nobody else seems to notice it I do.” She 
laughed a little, and said, “ I shall live to be married 
yet, as you told me.” 

‘ “ Shall you, miss ? I am glad to hear that,” I said. 

‘ “ Whom do you think I am going to be married 
to ? ” she said again. 

* “ Mr. Knight, I suppose,” said I. 

‘ “ Oh ! ” she cried, and turned off so white, and afore 
I could get to her she had sunk down like a heap of 
clothes, and fainted away. Well, then, she came to 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


herself after a time, and said, “ Unity, now we’ll go on 
with our conversation.” 

* “ Better not to-day, miss,” I said. 

‘ “ Yes, we will,” she said. “ Whom do you think 
I am going to be married to ? ” 

* “ I don’t know,” I said this time. 

‘ “ Guess,” she said. 

‘ “ ’Tisn’t my lord, is it ? ” says I. 

* “ Yes, ’tis,” says she, in a sick wild way. 

* “ But he don’t come courting much,” I said. 

‘ “ Ah ! you don’t know,” she said, and told me 
’twas going to be in October. After that she freshened 
up a bit — whether ’twas with the thought of getting 
away from home or not, I don’t know. For, perhaps, 
I may as well speak plainly, and tell you that her home 
was no home to her now. Her father was bitter to her 
and harsh upon her; and though Mrs. Swancourt was 
well enough in her way, ’twas a sort of cold politeness 
that was not worth much, and the little thing had a 
worrying time of it altogether. About a month before 
the wedding, she and my lord and the two children used 
to ride about together upon horseback, and a very pretty 
sight they were ; and if you’ll believe me, I never saw 
him once with her unless the children were with her too 
— which made the courting so strange-looking. Ay, 
and my lord is so handsome, you know, so that at last 
I think she rather liked him ; and I have seen her 
smile and blush a bit at things he said. He wanted 
her the more because the children did, for everybody 
could see that she would be a most tender mother to 
them, and friend and playmate too. And my lord is 
not only handsome, but a splendid courter, and up to 
all the ways o’t. So he made her the beautifullest 
presents ; ah, one I can mind — a lovely bracelet, with 
diamonds and emeralds. Oh, how red her face came 
when she saw it ! The old roses came back to her 
cheeks for a minute or two then. I helped dress her 
452 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 

the day we both were married — it was the last service 
I did her, poor child ! When she was ready, I ran 
upstairs and slipped on my own wedding gown, and 
away they went, and away went Martin and I ; and no 
sooner had my lord and my lady been married than the 
parson married us. It was a very quiet pair of weddings 
— hardly anybody knew it. Well, hope will hold its 
own in a young heart, if so be it can ; and my lady 
freshened up a bit, for my lord was so handsome and 
kind.’ 

‘ How came she to die — and away from home ? ’ 
murmured Knight. 

‘ Don’t you see, sir, she fell off again afore they’d 
been married long, and my lord took her abroad for 
change of scene. They were coming home, and had 
got as far as London, when she was taken very ill and 
couldn’t be moved, and there she died.’ 

* Was he very fond of her ? ’ 

‘ What, my lord ? Oh, he was ! ’ 

* Very fond of her ? ’ 

‘ Very , beyond everything. Not suddenly, but by 
slow degrees. ’Twas her nature to win people mare 
when they knew her well. He’d have died for her, I 
believe. Poor my lord, he’s heart-broken now ! ’ 

* The funeral is to-morrow ? ’ 

‘Yes; my husband is now at the vault with the 
masons, opening the steps and cleaning down the walls.’ 

The next day two men walked up the familiar valley 
from Castle Boterel to East Endelstow Church. And 
when the funeral was over, and every one had left the 
lawn-like churchyard, the pair went softly down the 
steps of the Luxellian vault, and under the low-groined 
arches they had beheld once before, lit up then as now. 
In the new niche of the crypt lay a rather new coffin, 
which had lost some of its lustre, and a newer coffin 
still, bright and untarnished in the slightest degree. 

453 


A PAIR OF BLUE EYES 


Beside the latter was the dark form of a man, kneel- 
ing on the damp floor, his body flung across the coffin, 
his hands clasped, and his whole frame seemingly given 
up in utter abandonment to grief. He was still young — 
younger, perhaps, than Knight — and even now showed 
how graceful was his figure and symmetrical his build. 
He murmured a prayer half aloud, and was quite un- 
conscious that two others were standing within a few 
yards of him. 

Knight and Stephen had advanced to where they 
once stood beside Elfride on the day all three had met 
there, before she had herself gone down into silence 
like her ancestors, and shut her bright blue eyes for 
ever. Not until then did they see the kneeling figure 
in the dim light. Knight instantly recognized the 
mourner as Lord Luxellian, the bereaved husband of 
Elfride. 

They felt themselves to be intruders. Knight pressed 
Stephen back, and they silently withdrew as they had 
entered. 

‘ Come away,’ he said, in a broken voice. * We have 
no right to be there. Another stands before us — 
nearer to her than we ! ’ 

And side by side they both retraced their steps down 
the grey still valley to Castle Boterel. 


THE END 



















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